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Quite 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 comple

Quite 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.”

ganzuul 5y ago
That's a great story. Thank you for sharing. :)
to1y 5y ago
Americans are pessimists masquerading as optimists, Russians are optimists masquerading as pessimists.
- comprev 5y ago
  A pessimist is a realistic optimist.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    Pessimism is prediction + sadness, not optimism + realism.
wruza 5y ago
[Americans] would sugar coat criticism under 10 layers of phony praise It really annoys the hell out of me. What’s wrong with just saying what’s wrong? The last example here on HN was a web version of flutter, where everyone was like “it’s amazing, so awesome, much controls” and only four comment levels deeper someone noted that it’s an utter crap that stutters at scroll on top hardware, cannot select text, cannot zoom, etc etc, so google reps had to start damage control. And I wouldn’t even mind this positivity, if it didn’t put landmines in what you choose for daily use. Everything is so amazing and awesome, they love it, and when you try/buy it, it’s just a half-functioning crap that you have to finish yourself or wait until they do. As if these awesome’rs didn’t do anything beyond reading a tutorial. How can you relate positively to something that spent your days of learning and experimenting and in the end turned out to be a joke?
- tgv 5y ago
  > It really annoys the hell out of me. What’s wrong with just saying what’s wrong? In their minds, they probably are. Why can't the whole world have a singular word to address the second party, as in English, but require multiple levels of deference? I suspect the reasons are related: they're communication patterns that are hard to dispel. And as long as there's no need, people simply keep them up.
- ACS_Solver 5y ago
  This is also a big annoyance for me. I regularly interact with people of different cultures, and find that interpreting feedback is something I have to context switch for often, always needing to remember whom I am speaking with. My native culture is quite straightforward in how things are phrased. As such, I find it easy to work with e.g. Germans, who routinely use phrases such as "this is unacceptable" in feedback. Which doesn't mean anything horrible, it just means that the specific thing being discussed is, in its current state, unacceptable for the final product. But Americans would likely phrase the same feedback as "needs some work". If American feedback includes "unacceptable" then you've probably really messed up. The most difficult part is recognizing when Americans are genuinely impressed by something. Since regular positive feedback is full of "this is amazing" and "we love it" (thing that would just get a "this is good" at home), it's hard for me to recognize when something has really exceeded expectations and they really do love it.
flurdy 5y ago
Subtleties are also difficult. If an English person say what you did was great, it most likely wasn't. And if they say it was not bad, it may have been great...
- russianbandit 5y ago
  That reverse psychology!

ganzuul 5y ago

That's a great story. Thank you for sharing. :)

to1y 5y ago

Americans are pessimists masquerading as optimists, Russians are optimists masquerading as pessimists.

comprev 5y ago
A pessimist is a realistic optimist.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  Pessimism is prediction + sadness, not optimism + realism.

wruza 5y ago

[Americans] would sugar coat criticism under 10 layers of phony praise It really annoys the hell out of me. What’s wrong with just saying what’s wrong? The last example here on HN was a web version of flutter, where everyone was like “it’s amazing, so awesome, much controls” and only four comment levels deeper someone noted that it’s an utter crap that stutters at scroll on top hardware, cannot select text, cannot zoom, etc etc, so google reps had to start damage control. And I wouldn’t even mind this positivity, if it didn’t put landmines in what you choose for daily use. Everything is so amazing and awesome, they love it, and when you try/buy it, it’s just a half-functioning crap that you have to finish yourself or wait until they do. As if these awesome’rs didn’t do anything beyond reading a tutorial. How can you relate positively to something that spent your days of learning and experimenting and in the end turned out to be a joke?

tgv 5y ago
> It really annoys the hell out of me. What’s wrong with just saying what’s wrong? In their minds, they probably are. Why can't the whole world have a singular word to address the second party, as in English, but require multiple levels of deference? I suspect the reasons are related: they're communication patterns that are hard to dispel. And as long as there's no need, people simply keep them up.
ACS_Solver 5y ago
This is also a big annoyance for me. I regularly interact with people of different cultures, and find that interpreting feedback is something I have to context switch for often, always needing to remember whom I am speaking with. My native culture is quite straightforward in how things are phrased. As such, I find it easy to work with e.g. Germans, who routinely use phrases such as "this is unacceptable" in feedback. Which doesn't mean anything horrible, it just means that the specific thing being discussed is, in its current state, unacceptable for the final product. But Americans would likely phrase the same feedback as "needs some work". If American feedback includes "unacceptable" then you've probably really messed up. The most difficult part is recognizing when Americans are genuinely impressed by something. Since regular positive feedback is full of "this is amazing" and "we love it" (thing that would just get a "this is good" at home), it's hard for me to recognize when something has really exceeded expectations and they really do love it.

flurdy 5y ago

Subtleties are also difficult. If an English person say what you did was great, it most likely wasn't. And if they say it was not bad, it may have been great...

russianbandit 5y ago
That reverse psychology!