Being from Europe, I can only confirm that people in the Bay Area are in fact, incredibly passive-aggressive. The first few years I must admit that I felt like

Being from Europe, I can only confirm that people in the Bay Area are in fact, incredibly passive-aggressive. The first few years I must admit that I felt like living on Mars. Even-though I'm coming from a "western" country whose lifestyle and tradition are somewhat similar, the cultural gap was actually much bigger than say, with Indians or Latinos. At work for example, it took me a rather long time to understand the real meanings of "I'm not sure" which means 'no' or "interesting" which means more or less that what you said is stupid. Not to mention being asked 200-times a day how I am doing or whether I found everything I was looking for at wholefood. Yep, people in this region have an imperial need to "be nice", at least on the surface and it can feel Orwellian at times if you are not used to it, especially on those days of bad mood. I think in Thailand they call that "sweet mouth, salty butt". But hey, that's also a huge plus, since it prevents a lot of bad vibes and unneeded frictions. I believe it's just a societal organization. Sometimes I go back to my country for work, and over there people's number one characteristic is distrust and indifference, and I can guarantee you that I feel like a foreigner over there now - well, on normal days, because if I happen to be in a bad mood, I'm kind of showing signs of Tourette syndrome and want to punch everybody. Overall, I think I'm mixing well in the Bay Area. And more importantly, most of my friends and relatives who share those character traits do tolerate that some foreigners like me don't necessarily think and act the same way. And frankly, wouldn't the world be boring if people were the same everywhere ?