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Why Russians do not smile (2002)
- lostlogin 5y agoThe different usage and meaning of eye contact is a minefield a bit like this.
- b0rsuk 5y agoMona Lisa was special in part because it was uncommon for people to smile. In Middle Ages, someone smiling a lot would be perceived as stupid. That's why facial expressions in medieval imagery are so serious. Today, being surprised a lot is often taken as a sign of stupidity, whereas in ancient Greece an owl was the bird of Athena, the goddess of wisdom. Because, obviously, an owl is always surprised, and surprise is the first step to understanding.
- nostromo 5y agoSmiling prominently for portraits seemed to become more popular only after modern dentistry became common. I imagine most people in the Middle Ages (and much later) had chipped, missing, buckled, crooked and stained teeth. Now pristine teeth are a signal of wealth (even though they're usually 100% fake veneers, at least among actors and models) so people want to signal their wealth by smiling prominently.
- brixon 5y agoIt was also an issue of the speed of capture. Paintings and old Cameras had long exposure times so you needed a pose that you could hold for a long time. https://time.com/4568032/smile-serious-old-photos/ https://time.com/4568032/smile-serious-old-photos/
- B1FF_PSUVM 5y agoUsed to be that you checked cattle's teeth for problems before buying - that's why it's impolite to "look a gift horse in the mouth". Also done with slaves, from what I've read. Nowadays it's voluntary, sort of.
- pmoriarty 5y agoYou don't have to open your mouth or show your teeth when you smile.
- rjsw 5y agoTeeth in skeletons from the Middle Ages seem fine. It is later ones, after bringing sugar back from the Americas, that have lots of cavities and missing teeth.
- ajross 5y agoBoth beets and sugar cane are old world plants, and maize-based corn syrup wasn't used as a sweetener until the 20th century. It's true that refined sugar is terrible for dental health, but it didn't come from the americas.
- Mediterraneo10 5y agoIt wasn’t known that beets could be exploited for sugar until the 16th century. Sugar cane was not known in Europe (outside Muslim-ruled areas of Spain) until post-Colombian times. In antiquity, the sole common means of sweetening food in Europe was honey, and later dulce de leche.
- inglor_cz 5y agoOr extracts from sweet fruit like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powidl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powidl
- BuyMyBitcoins 5y agoOr, something more Roman, lead! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_acetate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead(II)_acetate
- a9h74j 5y agoCheck out the thesis of the recent bestseller Breath by James Nestor. Native American and other traditional cultures put serious emphasis on nose breathing, strictly avoiding mouth breathing. Apparently, consistent nose-breathing can affect nasal and upper-palate development, favoring a spacious mouth and straighter teeth. It can also help avoid dry mouth at night, apparently favoring resistance to dental caries. There is a book by a 19th century ethnographer who discovered some of this, titled Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life.[1] [1] https://www.consciousbreathing.com/articles/shut-your-mouth-save-your-life/ https://www.consciousbreathing.com/articles/shut-your-mouth-...
- ptr2voidStar 5y agoFascinating insight. It is little gems such as these, that make HN a cut above the rest.
- hallarempt 5y agoPity it's not true.
- solarkraft 5y agoPlease elaborate
- fsflover 5y agoActually it's the OP who should probably provide some proof for the claim.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- coldtea 5y ago>In Middle Ages, someone smiling a lot would be perceived as stupid. Unfortunately 20th-century photo magazines, TV, and later Instagram and selfies changed that...
- pmoriarty 5y agoThis reminds me of some articles showing smiling Victorians, like this one: [1] Seeing them helps counter the general impression we get from seeing so many dour-faced Victorians from photographs of that era. [1] - https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/11/24/smiling-victorians/ https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/11/24/smiling-victorians...
- Florin_Andrei 5y agoAthena Glaukopis Well, it's complicated. Glaukopis could also be translated as "blue eyed", or "grey eyed", not just "owl eyed". Being the goddess of wisdom and handicraft (among other things), perception was a crucial attribute. Having big eyes (like the owl) could be interpreted as having good visual perception. But it's not just about the size. She's also described as having "bright eyes", or "flashing eyes", or "darting eyes". It's more about the acuity of perception, than about some emotional aspect.
- grayclhn 5y agoI mean, life was objectively a lot worse in the Middle Ages. Give a person from that era a McMansion and tell them to expect clean water, a hamburger, and a soft modern bed every night, they’ll smile too.
- zero_deg_kevin 5y agoThe thing that struck me most about this article was the frequent east/west framing. Is that common outside of the US?
- irinai13 5y agoVery common in post-Soviet countries. The US is often referred to as the "West" and so is Western Europe. This refers to both the freedom and a certain mentality ("mentalitet" in Russian). Never heard this framing in the US, though.
- graeme 5y agoIt was more common in the past. In 2002 the cold war had ended only 11 years prior. Now we are 30 years out. Same as how back then you could say “in the war” and people knew you meant WWII, but nowaways youth may give you a confused look. But yes at least in Canada we used to use the east/west framing, and in respect of russia. In 2002 they were the more prominent power compared to China. That situation has heavily reversed.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoI know a professor who taught at a community college in Brooklyn. He had a section on 9/11 and would warn his students if they had a personal connection to the events that they may want to skip those classes. Some students who were native life long New Yorkers didn't even know what 9/11 was.
- babypuncher 5y agoThe only way I can fathom this being the case in Brooklyn is a combination of kids living under a rock and a total failure of the local public education system.
- dosman33 5y agoYes. Once while touring a space museum in Switzerland I was reading the placards about the Russian and US space programs. Yuri Gagarin was consistently referred to as "the communist" which seemed perfectly normal to me as an American. Then I saw one that referred to John Glenn as "the capitalist" which was a novel concept to my brain. It wasn't until that moment that I realized just how ridiculous it was for us to refer to random Russians as communists, these were both seasoned military men who had nothing to do with either ideology other than the fact that their governments were pushing these things. Also, the "winning side" is allowed the freedom to move forwards and forget the past quicker. As a Yankee we don't think much about the US civil war. The deeper a northerner goes into the south the more you are reminded that their side did not win the civil war, they remember that shit, and you better be careful what you say about it less you get run out of town. [edit spelling; I had double checked myself but still fucked it up]
- thatfrenchguy 5y agoBut really, why do Americans smile?
- dougmwne 5y agoBasically the article still applies. People who always have a smile on their face are praised as having reached a level of contentment and joy that the rest of us aspire to. That and you'll eventually get fired from your job if you never smile.
- the_local_host 5y agoBecause our happiness often cannot be contained.
- pmoriarty 5y agoTo appear friendly and welcoming, and to show that you're having a good time. People often assume something's wrong if you never smile, or, worse, frown.
- jagrsw 5y agoI'll try to give you European POV :). People sometimes have good time (better than avg), sometimes bad time, and sometime neutral time (say.. thinking about some problem to solve, or repeating Swedish vocabulary to learn a new language, or trying to recall the name of a person you just met and you're supposed to remember). If you're compelled to smile with every interaction, in order to show that you have good time, then it'd mean that you'd be mostly lying according to the aforementioned definition :). Unless we re-define the 'good time', so it means 'not significantly bad', which seems to be the case here. It's just, that it requires a bit of effort to remember and to switch to when visiting US.
- dougmwne 5y agoI wonder if any Russians can weigh in if this still feels accurate. I'm familiar with Polish Culture, which is less fun, frivolous, and happy than American culture, but a smile is certainly not an attack, just reserved for genuine occasions. Service people are in no way expected to smile unless there is some honest reason to.
- j4yav 5y agoI can imagine a drunk person reacting as described, but mainly because drunk people are unpredictable. I think otherwise though it you smile a lot for no reason people will think you are a little foolish or loony, but it isn’t dangerous. I agree with the author that Americans and Russians have a surprising amount of similarities when you get past some surface level differences.
- flemhans 5y agoAnecdotally, the only unprovoked bad interaction I've had with a drunk guy was also in Riga. He'd come and take my beer out of my hand, and taunt me with it, refusing to give it back.
- ArkanExplorer 5y agoIts down to latitude. The latitude of Warsaw is 52.2° N, which is about the same latitude as northern Canada (Edmonton). Moscow is 55.7, which is the same as southern Alaska. Days are shorter, darker, and colder. It has an impact on your mood. Plus, the average income for a Pole is $18,000/year, whereas for the average White American worker its $40,000/year. Cost of living is often lower in America than in Poland (excepting Seattle, NY etc.). So materially the average American is a lot better off.
- tester756 5y ago>Cost of living is often lower in America than in Poland (excepting Seattle, NY etc.). So materially the average American is a lot better off. Is it?
- g42gregory 5y agoIt looks like they smile more now than in the past. Maybe the quality of life gotten better and they smile more?
- drran 5y agoIt's hard to punch a face via Zoom, so you can smile freely, until we meet really.
- ordu 5y agoIf Russians smile more (I do not know really), then the most likely explanation is a mixing of the USA culture into ours. I being Russian just do not keep smile on my face when everything is just fine. I'll keep smiling when things go especially good. I'd laugh evilly^W when they go in unexpectedly good way. But small variations from a statistical average is not enough of an emotional reason to change my facial expression. Statostical average is the key. If things made a habit of being extremely good, I'd stop smiling when they are extremely good. I'd wait for more exciting occasion.
- ellyagg 5y agoGiven their cultural history, is it possible Russians see the American sense of smiling as an individual asserting their superiority to others?
- bigdict 5y agoWhat is the connection to Russian cultural history?
- type0 5y agoUSSR and socialism, be brave comrade!
- konart 5y agoNah, if anything rather find it too pushy. "Don't bring all you happiness to my kindom of Russian Doom" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgjguiFxtps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgjguiFxtps
- olivermarks 5y agoThis is such a great article imo that really captures fundamental societal and cultural differences. I would say that Sweden has a similar 'grave' approach to life and that smiling is reserved for funny situations. Much as I love the US 'etiquette smile' when passing people in the street and meeting, social pressure to conform can mask stress, anxiety and solemnity. The English used to feel pretty uncomfortable about yanks grinning away at everything but they seem to have partially become Americanized in this regard. (I'm English originally but have lived in the US for decades).
- abawany 5y agoI've never gotten used to the 'etiquette smile' (I have different internal terms for it) and try to watch out for it as much as possible; I also appear to be physically incapable of expressing an emotion that I do not actually feel so there is no danger of me ever doing this to others. There is a certain shallowness that often accompanies it that often puts me on guard: the larger the smile, the tighter I grab my wallet and the quicker I wish to terminate the interaction.
- ck425 5y agoI can understand why you might presume it's shallowness but it's really a type of etiquette. Similar to offering a handshake. I'm Scottish rather than American but here babies are often encouraged to smile at family and friends. It's exactly the same as teaching please and thank you
- strokirk 5y agoWhat? No, Swedes smile a lot and have a lot of polite set phrases. Although it's more rare to hear people say "good" to an "how are you", it's usually some variation of "jovars", "can't complain".
- fogihujy 5y agoNo they don't, when you compare them to people who smile a lot. Neither Swedes or the Nordic peoples see themselves as gloomy as others do, though, so in that sense they're a lot like Russians.
- ilamont 5y agoIn this mini-ethnography I present the main differences in perception of the smile in Russia and in the United States. There are regional variations in the United States. In New England, NY and other parts of the Northeast, we are often quite serious/stone-faced in public, something that I have heard outsiders from the west coast and South observe. I also was struck by the demeanor of some friends from Brazil who always have a smile on their face, and seem to be more happy and upbeat even when things are not going well. There was related discussion on HN about smiling and laughter that's worth reading: From apes to birds, animal species that “laugh” (arstechnica.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27193602 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27193602
- Clubber 5y agoIn the US smiling wasn't as prevalent, at least in photographs. Look at any Civil War era picture and nobody is smiling in their portraits. I'm not sure when that started. I read somewhere that back then people thought people who smiled all the time were "simple minded." Now I can't help thinking that every time I see some marketing copy with some model smiling while playing with soap or something.
- Mediterraneo10 5y agoThe reason for the severe facial expressions and the lack of smiles in 19th-century photographs was the extremely long exposure times that the technology required back then. It was hard to hold a smile still enough that the film could capture it without blur. You can't assume from those portraits that people rarely smiled compared to now.
- Clubber 5y ago>The reason for the severe facial expressions and the lack of smiles in 19th-century photographs was the extremely long exposure times that the technology required back then. That's one theory, another one I've seen is people had bad teeth, but everyone had bad teeth so I don't see how that would be an issue. I like the theory that they thought constant smiling was for simpletons. https://history.nebraska.gov/blog/why-so-serious-3-reasons-why-you-never-see-smile-old-photographs https://history.nebraska.gov/blog/why-so-serious-3-reasons-w... >You can't assume from those portraits that people rarely smiled compared to now. Where did I say that?
- resoluteteeth 5y agoDo you also think the world was black and white back then?
- type0 5y agoIn America it's always about white and black, especially people seem to be obsessed with the amount of melanin pigmentation.
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- cafard 5y agoI have just browsed much of Adventures in the Atomic Age: From Watts to Washington by Glenn Seaborg, a Nobelist in Chemistry. He quoted in passing Tom Landry's dictum that "You can't think and smile at the same time.", but in the context of saying that some can: Enrico Fermi was always smiling, and always thinking.
- jokethrowaway 5y agoI've heard different explanations. Someone told me if someone is smiling to you in Russia, they are probably scamming you. A smile given away too freely for no reason can be perceived as fake and suspicious.
- ajg4 5y agoAbsolutely true, I have experienced this myself
- jldugger 5y ago> Someone told me if someone is smiling to you in Russia, they are probably scamming you. Russia also has dash cams aplenty because apparently pedestrians will willingly jump in front of cars for insurance money. Maybe they're smiling while they do it, but it seems like you can be scammed either way.
- squarefoot 5y agoMy personal take on smiles is that they're welcome if genuine, but can have adverse effects when forced. Many people think that displaying a fake smile for example at the workplace would help with interactions, especially professional ones, but rest assured that when I see someone faking a smile, particularly those working hard to look warm and sincere, I immediately feel I could be manipulated and get on the defensive. ...But I speak from personal experience of being shown daily the widest warm smile at the workplace from the same person that a few months later would dig my professional grave, so your mileage will probably vary.
- neurostimulant 5y agoI live in a culture where being nice and smiling to people is the norm. It's really nice interacting with strangers because they'll always nice and smiles at you (even road rage is particularly rare), but this also makes backstabbing office politics particularly painful, especially when you're still expected to display nice and smiling behaviour even after such backstabbing. I guess you can't have the best of both world for this stuff.
- zozbot234 5y agoIME, there's basically no correlation between your facial expression and whether you respect and work well with others. Someone who just smiles at you all the time is going to either seem nutty, or at best look like he's being really nervous and trying to find humor in the interaction somehow. It's a sign of weakness and might make others take you less seriously. On the flip side a firm expression and stiff upper lip can also connote respect for others.
- null_object 5y agoI genuinely love the narrative style of this article: every situation is described matter-of-factly, without artifice - unsmiling, in fact. It’s a perfect vehicle for its message.
- lopatin 5y agoOn a scale of 1 to 10, how much did you want to make that pun?
- null_object 5y agoAh ok. I guess my comment came across as smart-ass and contrived. But I actually thought of the prose like this.
- lopatin 5y agoAs was mine :) But you're right, it's well written.
- solids 5y agoLeaving aside cultural differences, isn't it a fact that smiles (genuine smiles) have health benefits?
- trhway 5y agotechnically speaking smiling increases airflow and thus improves work of the brain and the body. So one of first things i do in tough/stressful situations is i make myself smile. It has immediate effect of de-anxiety and improves attention (like kind of making yourself an impartial side observer of situation which is especially important when you are outnumbered), and back in Russia i would for example smile when find myself in a bind and before starting delivering punches if/when it would come to it, and in US i smile if something gets me frustrated as the Russian style of response to frustration isn't acceptable here and before i start delivering politely shaped microaggressions (the thing which seems to replace punches here :)
- rafaelero 5y agoI had the same impression traveling to Bolivia. I am Brazilian and we generally smile when speaking with someone. But in La Paz people usually had this serious look on their faces and a kind of difficult to approach semblance. I imagined poverty could explain that, but Brazil is a bit poorer than Russia. Maybe instead of poverty, we could think about hardship in a more general sense? I find very hard to believe that considering someone smiling insulting is a healthy outcome of a culture.
- firebaze 5y agoRussians can be the sincerest friends you know, smiling to you. They also can be your fiercest enemies, still smiling to you. Sometimes I think this is the source of the hollywood/McCarthy myth of bad russians. TL;DR: If all russians would play poker, the world would be broke.
- yakireev 5y agoRussian who travelled extensively through South America here. I'm not sure what's wrong with altiplano bolivians, but my impression was that they are not just grumpy, but genuinely unfriendly (and Russian cultural background kinda helps with differentiating the two). I used to speak quite decent Spanish back then, so I tried communication - and anywhere else on the continent my attempts were enough to break the ice and become friends, but not in La Paz. So far La Paz and bolivian altiplano in general is the only place in South America where I don't want to come back. Down in Santa Cruz folks are cool though.
- userbinator 5y agoWith masks being socially acceptable in most if not all the world now, I wonder if the lack of visible smile that causes will change the perception of a smile in places where people usually smile by default.
- Mediterraneo10 5y agoI wouldn't assume that masks will remain socially acceptable. I’m traveling at the moment in a touristic region of my country, and in spite of masks still being legally required in shops and (before your food is served) restaurants, almost no one is actually wearing them any more. I did wear a mask as I walked into a hotel reception tonight, but the proprietor outright said I was silly to do so, and she pointed to everyone else around. It was very clear that I had committed a faux pas. My expectation is that by years end, in Europe and North America at least, mask-wearers will be gently mocked everywhere outside of some large metropolitan areas (which have their own epidemiological concerns), and there won’t be any kind of long-term impact on facial expressions.
- zqna 5y agoAt first while reading the comment I thought of figurative mask, the one that wears of the fake smile. It was making sense. Only at the end of the comment I realized it was about blue masks.
- xvilka 5y agoYou can easily see if someone is smiling even when in mask - the "smiling eyes".
- fallingfrog 5y agoThe other part of this is that smiling when you don’t really want to, at people you don’t really like, as part of your job, is really exhausting. In the United States labor and especially service sector labor is very disempowered so they don’t really have the option to refuse to smile. In places where labor has a bit more leverage they might be able to. There’s also a special voice you put on, the customer service voice. Culture is often downstream from material conditions. https://youtu.be/A47SSXdUdvw https://youtu.be/A47SSXdUdvw
- zeroc8 5y agoAustrian here, we are somewhat in between Russians and Americans, when it comes to smiling. But what I can tell you is that life is just so much better when people smile at you, even if it might not be a hundred percent genuine. My comparison stems from having worked with both Russians and Americans. Being around grumpy Russians all day long makes live really miserable.
- ferdowsi 5y agoCannot agree enough. I joined a startup that very clearly initially hired for Russian cultural fit (friends hiring friends) and the mood was like attending a funeral on a daily basis. During interviewing, the hiring manager very cleverly had the minority of native-born Americans speak to me so I never got a feel for the actual culture. I couldn't imagine working long for a place where every day seemed like solitary misery, especially remote during a pandemic, where rapport and ease of communication matters a lot. Didn't help that the quality of engineering work was absolutely abysmal (see friends hiring friends). Was contacting recruiters within a week.
- borroka 5y agoSmiling and being entertaining are not correlated (personal experience after a few decades of being alive). There are few everyday situations worse than being welcomed by a smile which looks fake one mile out. A genuine smile is not an every-second gesture.
- LudwigNagasena 5y agoWeird, the only big “Russian cultural fit” issue I can think of is gendered norms and complete disregard for “political correctness”. People often make jokes at the workplace and make small talk, but yes, we don’t usually have big smiles during normal conversations or greetings.
- firebaze 5y agoI can't second this. Everytime I'm in the US I'm scared of all the friendly, smiling people, asking "How are you?" in such a friendly tone, it's delightful. Of course it's faked, anyone knows, and dare if you'd reply with "not good, my aunt just died". Awkward situation ensues, everybody tries to get out of the situation ("and what would you like to have for breakfast tomorrow?"). Now replay the same situation in another ("non-friendly") culture. Most of the "not-friendly" cultures would invite you to a free beer, asking what happened etc.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- phpnode 5y agoCommon telesales advice is to smile before you pick up the phone, because people can hear your smile and are generally more receptive to whatever you're going to say if you sound friendly. I wonder if this trick works in Russia?
- dandanua 5y ago> For Russians happiness and prosperity are not associated with the smile This is a very questionable claim. I think such association is true for humans in general and even for some mammals. Their culture just discourages happiness. Look at the Russian literature - that's an ocean of suffering.
- mLuby 5y agoBecause they have too much piano and not enough slide whistle. https://youtu.be/EyofqsBQS5I https://youtu.be/EyofqsBQS5I
- randcraw 5y agoThis the perfect opportunity to suggest a relevant book: "The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of the Scandinavian Utopia" by Michael Booth. He's a Brit who married a Dane, relocated to Denmark, and was struck by the cultural differences between Scandinavian cultures and his own. So he wrote a book. In it, he observes that smiles and jokes and easy conversation are more common among Brits and Americans than many Europeans, and suggests that, as you proceed northward and eastward through the continent, facial expressions tend to grow more sober and the tendency toward small talk fades. Not that these peoples are more unhappy, but there is generally less inclination to idly chat or joke around. The author offers numerous observations, interpretations, and interviews regarding local perspectives on 'happiness' during his travels. An insightful read that doesn't take itself too seriously.
- noisy_boy 5y agoI wonder why. Because the Nordic folks grew up around less people and those around really didn't chat much? They were passed and passing along the not-chatty culture? The weather sucks? Too much white affecting the mind in some manner? Atleast you have world-class social security?! :)
- ck425 5y agoThat's really interesting. Funnily enough in the UK it's the opposite. The further north you go the chattier and more friendly people get.
- lamontcg 5y agoI guess I should have been born in Russia. Might explain why I got along so well with my old German neighbors.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ozim 5y agoI really liked book by Erin Meyer "The Culture Map" it gives a lot more insight into those kind of things. She is American that moved to France and was working with multicultural teams. "Americans precede anything negative with three nice comments; French, Dutch, Israelis, and Germans get straight to the point; Latin Americans and Asians are steeped in hierarchy; Scandinavians think the best boss is just one of the crowd."
- abruzzi 5y agoI'm an American, but I don't smile by showing my teeth, though I will sometimes do a closed lip smile. For me I don't think it is cultural, but rather that smiling always feels to me like baring my teeth, i.e. aggressive and threatening. I don't honestly know why I feel that way, I don't have any history or experiences that would seem to cause that, but it just feels wrong to do. I've always wondered if there are other people have the same reaction? Note: I don't see other people's smiles as threatening, it just feels that way when I do it.
- stordoff 5y agoNot American (British), and it's never felt aggressive/threatening, but smiling in a way that shows my teeth has always felt exceptionally forced. It doesn't stand out as strange when other people do it, but it just doesn't feel like a natural reaction for me.
- nly 5y agoI'm a smirker also. It has the unfortunate side effect of standing out in photos, where I envy people with their full smiles. When you think about it though, a full teethy smile is a weird thing.
- lovelyviking 5y ago"When you think about it though " When you think about anything it becomes weird and deserves smile. Having said that I think since everything is weird then you can say that almost nothing is weird. And the key is not to think about it too seriously.
- kenjackson 5y agoI'm curious, how do Russians determine someone is in a bad mood from body/face language? In the US I can tell when my colleagues aren't happy the moment they walk in the room by their face. In Russia, do they have to speak in order for you to determine this or is there some other cue? Maybe if they smile?
- antisthenes 5y ago> I'm curious, how do Russians determine someone is in a bad mood from body/face language? If they're not my family or closest friends, what do I care what mood they're in? And if they are, I'll ask.
- slt2021 5y agoif they say Suka Blyat, then they must be angry. Just greet them with this phrase, and if they laugh in response - they are in a good mood, and if they dont- bad mood
- binbag 5y agoObservation from a Scottish perspective: We are somewhere in between the two modes. We smile more than Russians (not difficult) and less than Americans (also not difficult), and we notice both quite clearly. I would say we used to be more like the Russians (hence why Scottish people used to often be considered "dour" or depressed), but are now being Americanised through media consumption (like many countries). That is noticeable in that younger generations smile more than older ones.
- amelius 5y agoSee also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_humour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_humour
- cybice 5y agoChanged a little bit since that time. Mostly in cities, now we are smiling when meet with people we know well. This allows me to trick the system sometimes, every time I need something from government structure Im smiling there like an idiot, that cause unknown people to think that they know me and then help.
- cosmodisk 5y agoPlenty of contribution already,so I'll just add a personal anecdote. Some years ago I happened to have some beers with a Latvian Russian,who lived here, in London. He tells us that he doesn't get the Brits. He just doesn't understand the reasoning in some situations. I ask to elaborate. He says: last year, I had a pretty serious trauma and ended up in a hospital. It's so bad, pain, lots of tests,etc. And I'm pretty fed up with all of it. Then, one day, a surgeon comes in, says hello and asks me 'how are you?'. And I reply: 'really bad!'. And suddenly surgeon's face changes: his eyes start moving faster,he looks at me and then observes the room,then at me again. Then the surgeon,in a slightly panicky voice ask me again: well what's wrong,is it the food? Is it the nurses? Did they do all the tests? What's going on?' Then the Russian looks at the doctor and says: well look, I'm in a hospital, I'm ill as hell, I'm in pain and you have the audacity to ask how am I? Are you crazy? It should be pretty clear that it's definitely not my day! The surgeon goes on to explain the subtleties of the question and etc. At that point I already lived in the UK long enough to understand the doctor's position but I also found the Russians point to be absolutely hilarious. From personal experience I find the Russians absolutely hilarious even without much smiling (the young ones smile more).They are somehow similar to Italians,who are also hilarious, but as is the case with the Russians, the funniest things tend to be equally tragic too. Kind of a never ending tragicomedy on full blast.
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- 3pt14159 5y agoRussians are so extreme. Even though my favourite professors at Waterloo in Canada were Russian, it wasn't until I learned some basic Russian that I finally got over the typical view of them drilled into people by Hollywood. Your run of the mill Russian is honest about their feelings. Not honest about the facts, no, they can cheat on an insurance filing just fine. But that coldness that so many of them seem to have is often just an outer shell. Once one of them trusts you and gets to know you they're so warm and intense about their love for you. So excited to show you something dear to them. Even devoted enough to learn a new language just to speak to you, even if they're a senior[0]. It doesn't mean the relationship always survives, because that intensity is still there when they're angry, but the highs are so high. I do not regret learning basic Russian. [0] This happened to me. Twice.
- einpoklum 5y ago> Very often Western people criticize Russians for being too gloomy and unfriendly because we never smile WTF? I'm very often around Russian and other Slav people and many of them smile plenty. > In Western culture, and especially in the United States, the smile is an indication of well-being ... In Russian culture the smile is identified with laughter. Russians do not smile unless something funny happens and provides a reason for laughter. Massive over-generalization. Local culture, personality and personal life background induce much more variability in tendency to smile than whether you're Russian/Slav or not. Also, the author seems to lump the US and Europe together, something I also frown upon. Bottom line: I am not smiling at this article.
- rsj_hn 5y ago> WTF? I'm very often around Russian and other Slav people and many of them smile plenty. Yes, but this is about smiling at strangers. Random people on the street, or in the subway. What to many slavs is a type of stupid grin is to many Americans a sign of "being nice". We are not talking about actually smiling, say when you feel genuine warmth towards a friend.
- einpoklum 5y agoThat's not what the article claims. It claims Russians laugh when something is funny, and that's not the case. And - plenty of Russians smile during casual interactions with people they don't know personally.
- The_rationalist 5y agoUnrelated but I recently discovered an admiration toward Russian pharmacology, they have discovered some of the most interesting drugs out there, especially on the topic of anxiolytics and extending lifespan.
- CRConrad 5y agoYeah, krokodil seems nice... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desomorphine#Toxicity_of_%22krokodil%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desomorphine#Toxicity_of_%22kr...
- Veuxdo 5y agoHeadline: Why Russians do not smile Article: Russians do smile
- mgerullis 5y agoIt’s funny, I never noticed this. I grew up in Germany and had lived in the US for a year a while back. A few years after I met an American friend here who had been on a euro trip. She went to Prague (not exactly Russia, but culturally close enough I guess) and she said something like: "why are all people there so damn depressed?" I myself had great times in that same city, I never got that feeling. But I realized that there is a big cultural difference. I told her: "That’s how they are. They are still happy and loving people, they just show it differently". I would never perceive them as being depressed. Interesting how your surrounding culture can change your perception of things.
- type0 5y ago> She went to Prague Czech people are often brisk in attitude, Berliners on the other hand - that's something else entirely, I wouldn't describe people as unfriendly but everyone acts coldly and mechanically. Could it be that the fractured state of the city made everyone to be like that?
- mgerullis 5y agoI live in Berlin, raised German. The city is a wild mix and what you are describing I would argue is only applicable to a subset of people. Yes, many people here might seem cold and mechanical. That’s what I and this article have been trying to describe, people with an eastern heritage appear to outsiders this way. To me they do not appear this way, I’ve grown accustomed to this attitude. We perceive Americans often as overly talkative and artificially happy. They’re not, it’s just the way they express themselves. They might not smile as much in public but they do know how to love, be generous and laugh their asses off, just as westerners do. You’d see that once you get to really know these people. But on the other hand I have barely ever seen a place that is also inhabited with very hedonistic people who laugh and feel openly. It’s quite a weird place to be honest. Besides my German roots I’m also half Egyptian. Often when western people observe Arabs, they’re gonna think that they are constantly angry. I thought so myself when I was little. But it isn’t true. They have different means of communication and are some of the most welcoming, caring people I’ve ever met. All comes down to acceptance. Once you accept the cultural differences you got with that other person and adapt to them, you will not feel them as cold or mechanical.
- nogridbag 5y agoI've seen this topic a few times. As an American, the only time I've had a jarring experience with fake smiles is when I visited the Japan section of Disney's Epcot. It was a really bizarre experience watching the cashiers be overly cheerful. I've never been to Japan so I don't know if it's normal behavior or more of a performance for tourists.
- w0de0 5y agoI think the operating culture in that experience is less Japanese and more Disney-American.
- svachalek 5y agoI've only been to Japan once but aggressively cheerful is definitely a mode of business there. It feels even more forced and paper thin than what you would get in the US and I can't help but feel it boxes you into playing a certain character as customer too. It's not every business though, to be sure.
- vikingerik 5y agoThere is a selection bias there: Disney chooses naturally smiley people to put there as a public face. You're not seeing a random or representative sample, you're seeing outliers. The specific people you see in this role behave that way normally and not as a performance. That doesn't indicate anything about any broader population or culture.
- crispyambulance 5y agoYeah, I get a vibe of too nice , too formal from certain scenarios with employees from Asian and Middle Eastern countries. Colleagues in Singapore and Japan come to mind for me and also my interactions with Air Emirates employees. It stresses me out, and I wonder how much pressure they must be under to put on such a cloyingly polite affectation.
- bitcurious 5y agoI’ve noticed in Ukraine this “no smiling” thing is going away. Young people smile almost like Americans.
- w0de0 5y agoMelting pot cultures, like Brazil and America's, do not have common ethno-linguistic substrate on which to build civic society. Overt, ostentatious displays of goodwill and trust are a selected-for meme in successful, modern melting-pot cultures. I predict that smile incidence will vary in correlation to the ethnic homogeneity of a polity.
- sneak 5y agoI find people in cultures that are not constantly smiling and saying over-the-too cheerful things to have a higher dynamic range of displayed emotion. When everything is "awesome" and "amazing" and worthy of a grin, then nothing is. Despite being born and raised in the midwest US, I get along better with slavic people than most from the west coast.
- daxfohl 5y agoI've noticed most Russians I work with also speak slowly. I'm curious whether it is difficulty with English pronunciation or whether speaking slowly is part of Russian culture. I'm guessing more the latter, as the the things they say are also frequently quite concise and to the point, no filler words, few adverbs, so no need to speak quickly. Do Russians speak more quickly when speaking Russian?
- lecarore 5y agoI lived in Russia for a year and yes, they speak much faster in Russian than English. In particular if they are between just Russians and know they don't need to speak slowly to be understood. But I think it's the same for every language, people speak faster in their mother tong.
- treeman79 5y agoGuessing they talk at 39 bits of info per second. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/human-speech-may-have-universal-transmission-rate-39-bits-second https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/human-speech-may-hav...
- retsibsi 5y agoThis reminds me of some research[0] that found speakers of less information-dense languages speak faster, and vice versa, with the effect that all of the studied languages had roughly the same information transmission rate. [0] https://www.newscientist.com/article/2215202-all-languages-however-different-convey-information-at-the-same-rate/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/2215202-all-languages-h...
- giantg2 5y agoI guess I would fit in better in Russia
- hatchoo 5y agoI've worked with several Russians and I noticed that they type the smile emoticon without the colon... So instead of :) it's just ). For laughing it's ))))))) What's up with that? )
- ribs 5y agoDense Russian food must be stopping up their colons. (Yes, children, that’s how I got thrown off of Hacker News)
- maxgashkov 5y agoIt's a long standing tradition from older forms of chat software (IRC, ICQ and so on) and yes, it seems endemic to Russian speakers for some reason. I always explained it to myself that it saves time and also by the fact that to type ":)" in Russian kb layout you have to press Shift+6, Shift+0 compared to Shift+;, Shift+0 in US layout which seems a bit more cumbersome. Anyway, this is going away as most of the younger generation just uses emoji instead.
- _RPL5_ 5y agoMy pet theory is that it takes more effort with a Russian keyboards to type the smiley face. With English, you do "SHIFT + ;" for the colon and then "SHIFT+0" for the bracket. When I type it, I hold down SHIFT with my right pinkie, and hit ";" with my middle finger. I then outstretch my pointer to hit 0. It's mostly a single fluid motion. With Russian, you have to engage two hands instead of one. We have more letters in our alphabet so the ";" key is occupied by "ж" (a "zh" sound as G in Gerome), and the colon gets moved to "SHIFT+5". So now, to make the colon you have to first find "5" on the keyboard with your left hand, while holding down SHIFT with your right. Then you have to disengage your left hand, and reach for the 0 with your right to make the bracket. Rather than do all that, you can just place ")" and the context is enough to understand it's a smile. It could also just be tradition. My earliest memories of the Russian internet are from the late 1990s, and the convention of "))))" was already in place.
- Kinrany 5y agoUsing one vs two hands is a huge difference in convenience. I think this is the best version I've ever heard.
- golemiprague 5y agoI think Americans tend to smile all the time because they don't want to appear hostile to someone who is very likely to carry a gun. That's why they also don't have funny offensive chants in football and are not very good in general banter, they are just afraid to offence somebody by accident.
- sasaf5 5y agoI like how everyone in the west have a fake smile in pictures. I hated seeing myself like that so I stopped smiling for pictures at an early age (to great irritation of my relatives).
- danbmil99 5y agoThere's actually a regional difference. Growing up on the east coast in New York people rarely smiled at each other on the street. Someone you didn't know smiling at you could mean a crazy person, or some sort of con artist trying to suck you into interacting with them. Living on the west coast for the last twenty years, the situation is totally different. On a bike trail, on the sidewalk, people often smile and nod at each other. At first it was very off-putting and I found it hard to reciprocate. Over the years I've forced myself to do it so as not to seem unfriendly, but it's been a bit of a chore. That natural paranoia I feel, suspicion about people's motives, is something I grew up with and I don't think I'll ever be able to put it down completely.
- hellbannedguy 5y agoYea, I noticed east/west coast friendships are different too. Friendships are a bit stronger on the east coast. At least from my perspective in California.
- sunshineforever 5y agoOn the east coast its way less 'appropriate' to interact with strangers so friends are a more limited set, necessarily brought together by more than mere chance. The cultural differences are so fascinating.
- danbmil99 5y agoYes I can go on about that too. Friendships are harder to form but last longer and seem deeper on the East Coast. Here on the West Coast, you frequently have relationships and appear to be deep friendships and then you just drift apart and never connect again. It's sort of like the smiling thing at a mega scale.
- wrs 5y agoIn some parts of the US (particularly small towns and the Midwest) people will not only smile and nod at strangers on the sidewalk, but say hello or ask “how are you?” (not expecting anything other than “fine, thanks”). In New York, that would definitely be cause for concern!
- daxfohl 5y agoAnother thing I've noticed uniquely with some Russian colleagues, and I've never quite known the meaning of, but I assume is Russian cultural attribute, is silence. A few times I've e.g. been explaining something to a Russian colleague, I'll go on and on, and when I'm done ... nothing. This always gets me anxious. What does it mean? Does the person think it's the dumbest thing he's ever heard? Did the person not understand what I said? Does the person need more time to think about it? Does the person not realize I'm finished? What is expected of the speaker in this scenario? Do I just wait? Do I prod? Do I explain it again? Do I leave? Is there some microexpression I should be looking for to differentiate? Or is this not actually a Russian thing and just an anomaly?
- tazjin 5y agoWhat are you expecting them to do?
- profunctor 5y agoAn ACK of some sort is expected when explaining something
- jes 5y agoACK
- hackerfromthefu 5y agoAs gp is not speaking to themself, it's an interaction. So maybe gp is expecting them to inter-act, ie make some reciprocal action of some kind back. Silence is an action, that in my culture usually means 'dont want to tell you my real response'.
- zvrba 5y agoHow about saying something like "That was all, what do you think?". (I'm eastern-european as well :p)
- lostwords 5y ago
- dang 5y agoSome past related threads: What a Russian Smile Means - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17445108 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17445108 - July 2018 (67 comments) What a Russian Smile Means - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17381975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17381975 - June 2018 (1 comment) What a Russian Smile Means - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17376212 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17376212 - June 2018 (1 comment) Do Russians smile at each other? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7491944 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7491944 - March 2014 (1 comment) Why do Russians smile so little (and Americans so much?) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2375633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2375633 - March 2011 (105 comments) Pretty sure there have been others. Anybody?
- shoto_io 5y agoA while back I flew to Moscow as a consultant to do a 1 day workshop. All went fine. The only thing that irritated the hell out of me was that no one laughed at any of my jokes. Not even smiled. I thought it was the translator.
- omazurov 5y agoA friend of mine who had lived in the USA long enough to pick up some local traits had to go back to Russia to renew his expiring documents. One required a fresh photo to be taken. The guy who was readily available next door for the occasion felt a bit uneasy about doing his job. After several discarded takes he finally figured it out: "Stop stretching your lips!". [-1] Not the right time to smile https://www.svoboda.org/a/28088763.html https://www.svoboda.org/a/28088763.html
- airhead969 5y agoRegardless that I look Russian but not, I guess this is one of many cultural reasons why I get along with them so well. Being socially forced to smile and be positive all of the time (toxic positivity) seems fake and mentally-unhealthy to me. I understand wanting to brighten other people's day but to sustain manic/positive/energetic appearance all of the time and towards everyone sounds exhausting. The other thing I like about Russian culture is, like a cardiologist or a brain surgeon, finding humor in everything (brain surgeons may find less than they were expecting but they're an optimistic bunch). A CIA agent is sent on a mission in Moscow. He goes to a grocery store and writes down in his diary "There is no food". He then goes to a clothes shop and puts down in the diary "There are no shoes". He leaves the shop, and a KGB agent waiting for him outside says: "You know, 10 years ago we would have shot you for that." The CIA agent writes in his diary "There are no bullets".
- jeduehr 5y agoI especially enjoy reading this from the school newspaper of the University where fun goes to die (my alma mater). :)
- Blikkentrekker 5y agoI find this article quaint. It at one point says: > It was really different from Europe, where people are mostly polite, but quite reserved in their non-verbal expressions. but it also says: > Very often Western people criticize Russians for being too gloomy and unfriendly because we never smile. It seems to be somewhat undecided on whether the smiling culture is a U.S.A. idiosyncrasy, or a “western" one, and it very much is the former, I believe, the U.S.A. cultural emphasis on smiles is wel known throughout most of the world, including most of “the west”.
- Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 5y agoQuite a lot of US culture can come off as phony to (Eastern) Europeans. Friend of mine went to the US for a business schooling event and said people were completely incapable of honest criticism. They would sugar coat criticism under 10 layers of phony praise. He was the only one who actually said something was bad outright, if someone gave a bad presentation. He attributed it to cultural difference. Guess it is related to what Americans think is friendly / unfriendly behavior. It's tough to navigate Americans. They're super friendly, but often I feel like it's their version of "being polite" and not more. Just yesterday I read https://idlewords.com/2018/12/gluten_free_antarctica.htm https://idlewords.com/2018/12/gluten_free_antarctica.htm which is pretty amusing, and I recommend reading. Quoting the most relevant (to this discussion) part from it: > “Can I ask you something? How come the Russians never smile? I’ve never seen them smiling.” > “They’re at work. They're Russians.” > "Is it normal for them to eat without talking to one another?” > “This is their job. They get 20 minutes to eat.” > “Yeah, but they never smile. Are they happy?” > Are the Russians happy? Is anyone happy? Can one ever truly be said to be happy? > I am tempted to go full Slav on Conor, to explain to him how we are all just grains of dust suspended in the howling void, searching for meaning in the fleeting moments before we are yanked back to the oblivion from whence we emerged, naked and screaming. But for all his faults he's just a kid stuck spending his summer microwaving Yorkshire puddings for difficult people. I take pity. > “Russians are formal. It would be weird of them to act relaxed on duty. They are all smiling on the inside.”
- kgeist 5y agoWhen Americans smile, they think they are being friendly, but in some cultures it is perceived as a predatory grin. Cold War propaganda posters often show Americans smiling, and it's not to show the are friendly, easy-going people.
- IgorPartola 5y agoI am Ukrainian. Came to the US when I was 14. I may never be cool like all the hard looking dudes in movies and whatnot but I smile all the time because either I find something funny in what I’m engaged in or if I don’t that I try to think of it as such. I have always been this way and I can’t imagine not doing it. Also, I have read a few comments in this discussion about how fake American smiles and “how are you?”s are and I have to disagree somewhat. To a large extent Americans use “how are you” and “what’s up” as generic greetings but at the same time you can often tell when someone is using it instead of “hello” vs having 30-120 seconds to chat pretty easily. If my day is going well I make a point of telling the random person I’m interacting with why that is: “I’m doing great. The weather is so nice and I had a lovely cup of coffee on my back porch today.” Quick interaction, mostly meaningless, but to me it’s a nice way to break up the monotony. On the other hand if I’m having a bad day I don’t feel like hiding it but the trick is to not make it the other person’s problem: “I’m getting by. I blew a tire on the way to work and I just had all four tires replaced. But oh well, that’s just how irony works I guess.” Again, quick and simple and not the typical “fine” response. At worst they go “oh that sucks. Paper or plastic?” but more often it could result in a short conversation and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rectang 5y agoYou sound like a lovely person, Igor. You've gifted many passers-by delightful little blooms of human connection.
- IgorPartola 5y agoI wouldn’t go so far as lovely, but I think I found a way to make my chattiness palatable to others. I did hear at one point that an exchange of at least seven phrases back and forth constitutes a conversation and that lots of service workers can go a day without one which can lead to depression and such. No clue how true that is but I figure this kind of approach can’t hurt.
- 5y ago
- ping_pong 5y agoWow, what an interesting and insightful article! I've worked with many Russians and enjoyed working with them immensely, but I did notice they seemed very stern or serious as well. The difference in culture of smiling is very interesting, this is definitely something to understand going forward when I work with other Russians.
- andreskytt 5y agoEstonian here. At Skype (10+ years ago) I observed, that members of large cultures (American, British, Hindu etc.) had real trouble adjusting to the predominantly Estonian-based engineering culture. Probably because they had never had to adjust, commonly people adjust to _their_ culture as it tends to dominate large organizations. But once they did make an honest attempt, that was always most welcomed and gained them a large amount of goodwill. Our US CEO going to a sauna with 20 naked engineers... I’ve also seen the “how are you” thing described in comments unfold. A Hindu pm had the habit of sitting next to developers while they worked, sometimes putting a hand on their knee. After being politely explained that the size of an Estonian personal space is measured in astronomical units and that this was the reason devs literally scattered upon his approach, he immediately changed his behavior and became great friends with the team. A US lady came to hr complaining about an Ukrainian dev approaching them inappropriately during a party. The hr-person, having witnessed the situation, explained that this was just their way of showing friendly interest and no disrespect was intended. A while later, a Japanese guy came to the hr person complaining the original lady from us had hugged them. Again, it was explained that this is just what Americans do. Cultures are hard and take a lot of mutual respect to work through.
- solipsism 5y agoA Hindu pm had the habit of sitting next to developers while they worked, sometimes putting a hand on their knee Eh... That doesn't sound like just an Indian being Indian. a Japanese guy came to the hr person complaining the original lady from us had hugged them. Again, it was explained that this is just what Americans do Nope... We don't hug people who don't want to be hugged. The Japanese guy was right to complain, and the American woman should've been asked to be more careful. Expecting everyone to just accept anything because "that's what they do where they're from" is setting things up for people to be actually victimized and to feel like your company is fine with it.
- amazingman 5y ago> Expecting everyone to just accept anything because "that's what they do where they're from" is setting things up for people to be actually victimized and to feel like your company is fine with it. Your point is valid in the abstract, sure. That’s not what was said, though.
- aristofun 5y agoRussian here. The fact is that russian life is really miserable (just imagine living for 100 years in hardcore totalitarian communism, still in progress with different labels). There’s really not that many reasons to smile while you grow up & live in Russia. And you don’t even have a strong quality spiritual platform (like some asian countries) or good climate (like some aftican countries) to compensate. You don’t waste your attention span on smiling etc - you’re busy surviving and fighting for the best spot in pyramid. If you smile too much — it could even cause jealousy and you win more enemies or people might consider your positive attitude a sign of softness and take advantage of you. It’s also suspicious to see someone smiling a lot - its harder to read his underlying subtle motivations & values. And russians don’t have much time to make friends - the sooner and better you identify like minded people the easier for you as a group to survive. That’s why russian tend to smile only in a close group of friends or when something really funny is going on.
- mikeymz 5y ago"But in the majority of life situations, like business or political meetings, there is no humor at all" That's your problem right there
- bb101 5y agoInteracting with strangers, Russians are coconuts whilst Americans are peaches. I've found Erin Meyer's Culture Map[1] a good guide to navigating different cultures. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22085568-the-culture-map https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22085568-the-culture-map
- noobermin 5y agoI have a SO in Singapore. Once we were at a (sort of chic actually) cafe and the cashier made eye contact without a smile and said, "ah what you want" and I was instinctively taken aback. It's amusing because I have since figured out that people in sg just act differently, I mean by that point me and her had been dating for years and I've learned that in general Asian cultures tend to be more reserved (in certain respects, they are less reserved in ways Americans aren't, my father in-law tells me straight up when he sees me that I've gotten fatter). That said, it felt odd to be in a situation here where in the US I usually have to shake off the constant pan-american smiles and chiming in to see how the food is etc, etc. I usually rather people back off a little or chill out at least and yet because it's so ingrained in my head that a situation where I actually got customer service that is brutally efficient, my first instinct is to think they didn't like me.
- erikbye 5y agoSo Russians are exactly like Norwegians in this regard, must be why we get along so well. That and our dark if not often black taste in humour. I know many Norwegians considers a laughing, smiling idiot just that, an idiot. Unintelligent. Either that or the person smiling and laughing all the time for no apparent reason must be very insecure, or just weird.
- dzhiurgis 5y agoLith here. One of the most embarrassing things that I've done in my life was first day of induction in my UK university. The lecture was about cultural differences. We were assigned into groups and asked to list couple of stereotypes that we know. I didn't realised we were supposed to say something like "Americans are hard working and Brits are punctual". Instead I've bombasted to 200-something students that Asian people smell.
- LimaBearz 5y agohaha what?! I love me some good stereotyping humor but I’ve never even heard of that one! What do they smell like?
- corty 5y agoBasically, food. Your nutrition changes your smell. You usually do not consciously notice except for very strong smells like from garlic or asparagus consumption. But a lot of food has this effect, and in sum the effect of the things one typically eats lead to a typical smell. Since nutrition is often culturally determined, different cultures smell differently. You just don't smell your own, because you get used to it.
- nobodyandproud 5y agoJust to fit in the missing piece of the puzzle: In the UK (and unlike the US), the term “Asian” is frequently associated with Indian and Pakistani and not just East Asians. I’m guessing this is what the OP had in mind. Blurting this out must have been mortifying.
- nikolay 5y agoLook at old photos - people never smiled, because you were considered to be stupid. Smiling all the time is pretty boring and I'd rather see real emotions than faked smiles. The hypothesis of positivity is crashing left and right anyway. Positive people live shorter lifespans, too - quite the opposite of what they tell you.
- sublimefire 5y agoAlthough the author attributes the lack of smiling to Russians, I would suggest this generalization should extend to continental Europe. For instance, there is a related saying describing differences between Brits and Germans - "Too polite to be honest and too honest to be polite". It captures the idea that in Anglo Saxonian culture, it is more important to be polite. I'm living in Ireland, and this bit around non-honest smiling just drives me nuts sometimes. Otherwise, it is excellent when you're going for a walk because it creates a positive and inviting atmosphere. But adapting to a constantly cheerful and smiling surrounding was not without a challenge. Do I smile and say hi all the time to every person, or are there exceptions? There is a bit of a learning curve as after 50 smiles and hi's every day, I feel exhausted, LOL.
- anovikov 5y agoIt's a lot easier, Russian popular culture is formed by gulags, because a good third of adult men had gulag experience at some point and it was their main life-shaping experience (usually resulting in their rise in social hierarchy too). And in gulag, a smile is a sign of submission.
- darkest_ruby 5y agoLatvian here, very true story
- hellbannedguy 5y agoAs an American, I have never trusted people who always smile. I hate to say this, but in my little life, I was right. I have a conniving greedy, but very successful financially, little sister, whom used her smile as a tool.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 5y agoRussians live in harsh climate, so they have to conserve energy more. Smile has been proven to employ a lot of muscles and thus spend a lot of energy.
- bpolovko 5y agoBunch of nonsense, which ignores the fact of crippled trust and hostility in a psychologically crippled post-communist society. What does “cultural difference” mean? If you dig a bit of history in the last 110 years in Russia and have a basic understanding of psychology - you can easily answer why people don’t smile in Russia.
- eaa 5y agoThey do. Just not round the clock.
- nsonha 5y agoit's not just Russian, traditionally countries in East Asia are like that too. I have also heard the Brit and the German are like that
- known 5y agoTL;DR Unless it's amusing Russians do not smile;
- nottorp 5y agoNo offense, but the American Hollywood style smiles don't even look like smiles to me. More like a dog baring their teeth to warn you. Not Russian, but close enough to the Russian space.
- gonational 5y agoSomething like 30 million Russians were killed by socialism in the last century... I imagine that has an effect on your culture.
- jgilias 5y agoI'm really late to the party, but here goes anyway. Some context is due. The article is almost twenty years old. The experiences described there are from a time period when Latvia had gained independence from the Soviet Union only some ten years prior. So, pretty much all the people working in the hospitality industry would be someone whose formative years and/or young adulthood was spent during the nineties. That was a pretty brutal decade. Rearranging from planned to market economy is hard. Economic crises abound, rampant organized crime, generally high levels of aggression. I come from a small town and I was a kid then, but even then I know of four murders that happened then in my home town. A guy was beaten to death in a nightclub, another guy was thrown from a bridge, my favorite sales clerk at a local store got incarcerated for axe-murdering his wife and her lover, and a body was found in the bushes behind my music school. Ah right, there was also the case of a neighbor massacring a family on a potato field. A friend who lived in Riga during that time told me how his dad always had a peace of metal pipe behind the door. Just in case. In a later interview the guy who was chief of police then revealed how he slept with body armor on at all times. So, people who were teenagers or young adults then learned to not smile for the same reasons the prison population is not really a cheerful bunch. It's outright dangerous. There's a book and a recently made movie about coming of age as a metalhead in a mid-sized Latvian town during the nineties called Jelgava 94 (Doom 94). It really conveys the look and feel of those times quite well. It's very different now. Sure, people don't smile as much as Americans (no one except Thais does), and are not as chatty as the Brits. But a lot of people have worked or traveled abroad, have seen and gotten accustomed to different cultures. According to my experience pretty much everyone below the age of 25 speak fluent English. And hug. They hug a lot. And yeah, the crime levels are nowhere near to how it was in the nineties.
- NaN1352 5y agoWhat we call "culture" is often collective trauma, it is history. To be left behind. We are all humans, dysfunctional in different ways we call "culture".... until one can hope, someday the fish sees the water. There is strictly no sane reason why a human being should withdraw a smile or any kind of positive emotion or spontaneous expression so long as they are emotionally healthy. At same time the need for boundaries in our relationships (professional , intimate etc.) is universal, not cultural.
- Slow_Hand 5y agoI’ve always enjoyed this kind of cultural comparison due to the perspective it brings to my own inherited behaviors (American). Does anyone have recommendations of resources where I can read further comparisons? Is there a name for the study of these cultural differences?
- cacarr 5y ago"In the animal world bare teeth are considered to be a threat. Hence I think there is some instinctive fear of bare teeth built into our social perception system." Except a human smile is more akin to a canine's greeting/appeasement grin. And much more so like a Chimp's play grin. There are toothy displays in mammals that are not threatening.
- cacarr 5y agoMany years ago I lived in a sort of dormitory in Tokyo. The Americans and Japanese residents understood each other's personal space preferences just fine, but it was amusing to note the look on some of the Japanese people's faces when the Italians greeted them with hugs and kisses.
- garfieldnate 5y ago> It is even worse if the person smiles showing his/her teeth. In the animal world bare teeth are considered to be a threat. Hence I think there is some instinctive fear of bare teeth built into our social perception system. I would love to hear from an evolutionary psychologist if this really is a thing in people. I remember being pretty astounded to learn that smiling monkeys are dangerous; there's no part of my consciousness that thinks of a toothy smile as dangerous.
- sabersei2 5y agoRussians do smile, a lot. The thing is, Russians are not fake nor pretentious neither they like ppl that are like that. They're lovely simple down to earth ppl and they don't take any kind of BS. If you "act", they will not smile back. I love that!!