# Are there any places where the population isn't nice? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 1, 2017, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591 "2017-08-01T17:00:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ssgenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@ssgenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ssgenius)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2017, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/41 "2017-08-01T23:59:51Z")
> [@kayT](#): > > This has not been my experience. Maybe it is a factor of how you define “nice”. My experience in small towns has been that “outsiders” are not tolerated, and if you once get to be partway “inside” then everyone knows your business and feels obligated to comment on it. Neither of which fits my definition of “nice”. Excellent point It is often told tale that it is easier to disappear in a large city than it is to disappear in a smaller town ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/42 "2017-08-02T00:54:07Z")
> [@steatopygia](#): > > People in big cities (NY, Philly) tend to be less nice than people in small towns. I would say that is a normal adaptation to the increased stress of city life. > . Another normal adaption to living in a small town, is not liking strangers, but having to work with tourists for a living. Working with people you don’t like is a hgh-stress situaiton, so people visiting those towns as tourists sometimes see a different face. We found Paris very nice/polite/helpful, but then, we came from Australia… Which is another interesting point: I’m convinced that Australians and Americans get on so well together because _they don’t understand each other_. Just one of those classic tales of cross-cultural misunderstanding. The Hindu area of Bali (Indonesia) has a noticably different vibe than the Muslim areas. I guess Singapore has a bit of a NYC thing going. FIRST. And don’t expect them to hold the elevator for you. Of course, Singapore thinks that mainland Chinese are pushy and self-serving — but they aren’t being rude to outsiders: it’s just the way they are. ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/43 "2017-08-02T01:00:16Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I spent about 10 days in Uzbeskistan mostly in Khiva, Bukhara, and Samarkand (and a little bit of Tashkent) and, besides us finding ourselves in the police station within 10 minutes of stepping out of the airport (for reasons not involving us being accused of anything) and I found the people wonderful and generous. Within the first day in Khiva, I was invited into some family’s house to take pictures (I was a photographer wandering around the outside of the famous city walls taking pictures and got flagged down by some kid), and they let me take pictures of the whole family and even gave me some freshly made flatbreads to take home, after showing off their tandoor-type clay oven. They didn’t ask me for any money or anything, just gave me an address to send photos to. > > Going around the market in Samarkand, it was similar. I was photographing and marveling at all the spice vendors and their colorful mixtures, and they’d give me bags of dried spices for free. And in Bukhara, I got probably the drunkest in my life eating kabobs, smoking Pine cigarettes, and downing cheap Uzbek vodka ($1 a bottle) with a group of Uzbeks I met and communicated with in some sort of pigeon Slavic language (I speak Polish and I have a smattering idea of Russian, but not quite enough to really hold a conversation in it, but apparently it was enough that night.) I woke up the next morning with the most wicked hangover, but everything intact, nothing stolen. Just a good night at the outdoor kebab place with strangers doing something in retrospect that was probably pretty damned stupid but, hey, I was a twentysomething. > > Very friendly people. I was making a Borat reference 🙂 but I appreciate your first-hand experience. ---
**Author:** ![Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mean_mr.mustard/32/3865_2.png) [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/44 "2017-08-02T01:02:05Z")
Old joke: A tourist walks up to a local in Manhattan and says, “excuse me, but could you please tell me how to get to Central Park or should I go fuck myself?” Which is actually the opposite of my NYC experience, believe it or not. mmm ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/45 "2017-08-02T01:03:50Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > When I was living in RI, I had some business in Oklahoma and would go there frequently. The first time I went there and interacted with the locals it was definitely off-putting. They were so nice I keep wondering what the wanted from me! 🙂 Coming from New England, it definitely took some getting used to. Mrs. Plant (v.2.0) born Long Island, lived in New Hampshire was also surprised by the friendliness of rural Southerners. She saw a guy filling his driveway with rock, and said “When you finish, you can come do mine!” He did. When her van was stuck (A New Englander driving in Southern snow, the mind boggles) the guy who stopped couldn’t pull her out, and went home to get his Father’s larger truck, and pulled her van free. In her native New Hampshire, I stopped and smiled to let two women enter a grocery store in front of me. They fled. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/46 "2017-08-02T01:06:58Z")
> [@Mean\_Mr.Mustard](#): > > Old joke: A tourist walks up to a local in Manhattan and says, “excuse me, but could you please tell me how to get to Central Park or should I go fuck myself?” > > Which is actually the opposite of my NYC experience, believe it or not. > mmm That’s basically what I was like in Europe and people didn’t understand me until I was like “TABLE FOR 1, OKAY, GARKON?” ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/47 "2017-08-02T01:29:14Z")
I find the negative comments about New Orleans to be incomprehensible. I’ve been there eight times and have never encountered friendlier people anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/48 "2017-08-02T01:43:18Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > I find the negative comments about New Orleans to be incomprehensible. I’ve been there eight times and have never encountered friendlier people anywhere. The one time I was there, I felt like the locals were friendly in the same sense and for the same reason that carnies are friendly. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/49 "2017-08-02T01:48:47Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > The Hindu area of Bali (Indonesia) has a noticably different vibe than the Muslim areas. How so? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/50 "2017-08-02T02:02:01Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > I was making a Borat reference 🙂 but I appreciate your first-hand experience. Ah, Kazakh propaganda. Figures. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Arrendajo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Arrendajo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrendajo)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/51 "2017-08-02T02:05:21Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > I find the negative comments about New Orleans to be incomprehensible. I’ve been there eight times and have never encountered friendlier people anywhere. I found that odd too. My ex told me people were so friendly there that she began to distrust their motives. She said everyone she passed on the street said hello to her. I haven’t found New Yorkers to be rude. Last time I was there I easily engaged people on the street. But maybe I look like a New Yorker. One of the odd things that happened to me is that quite a few people asked me for directions. I had studied the map pretty carefully before going out, so I almost always knew how to tell them to get to the mostly tourist destinations they were asking about. They probably thought I was quite friendly for a New Yorker. I’m from Oregon. I do think people in the intermountain west can be standoffish. I was raised there. I found Seattle to be polite and helpful, but difficult to crack into socially. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/52 "2017-08-02T02:12:26Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > The one time I was there, I felt like the locals were friendly in the same sense and for the same reason that carnies are friendly. I used to live there for college and worked as a bartender. It depends on when and where you go. If you go to a nice bar during the slow season, people will be extremely nice. However, Mardi Gras season is a madhouse and service people, especially bartenders, have to be extremely fast and brusk to do their job well. It is all about volume. Jazz Fest and large conventions are the same way. You only have about 15 - 30 seconds to take a drink order and have it delivered and paid for during really busy times. Anything more than that is cutting into your (very high) tip compensation. I did some things that would be considered extremely rude including getting three of my coworkers to pick up a chair with an old lady sitting in it and carrying her down the steps to be picked up by anyone on St. Charles avenue because she was completely drunk and belligerent. I also used to have to forcibly bounce people for things like running behind the bar and trying to grab whole bottles of liquor. Most people don’t do that but that type of thing is surprisingly common in a party city that many drunk people assume is largely lawless. You can have lots of fun in New Orleans but there are some rules that you will get nailed for breaking and it wears on the service people. I have some sympathy though. I got accused of walking out without paying for my meal about 10 years ago in a French Quarter establishment. I paid and then went to the bathroom and tried to walk out when the bartender tried to stop me for not paying. Look next to the napkin dickhead like you should have done in the first place. I initially left a generous tip but took it back for being a prick. OTOH, if you go to a nice place on a Sunday morning for brunch, it is one of the friendliest places in the world. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/53 "2017-08-02T02:23:17Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > The Hindu area of Bali (Indonesia) has a noticably different vibe than the Muslim areas. As a long-time resident of Indonesia, I strenuously object to the idea that non-Muslims are nicer than Muslims in that country. Sure, there are cultural differences between Java and Bali (not to mention the gazillion other places in Indonesia). But instances where anyone has been anything but super-nice to me, in the 17+ years I’ve been in the country, are vanishing rare. Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus – everyone has been kind and welcoming. Now, if you are talking about Muslim residents of Bali (you don’t mean Tenganan, right - they aren’t especially friendly, but they also aren’t Muslim), that’s a somewhat different situation. Unfortunately there ARE religious tensions in Indonesia, and Balinese Muslims, as a minority group, may not be the happiest folks on island. I still find it hard to believe the “vibe” is less friendly, but I will concede that I don’t have a lot of personal experience talking to folks in Balinese Muslim communities. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/54 "2017-08-02T03:19:54Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > The one time I was there, I felt like the locals were friendly in the same sense and for the same reason that carnies are friendly. Did you ever get out of the French Quarter, into the neighborhoods? ---
**Author:** ![ataraxy22](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ataraxy22/32/307_2.png) [@ataraxy22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ataraxy22)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/55 "2017-08-02T04:25:08Z")
The Chuuk Atoll in Micronesia has a reputation for unfriendly people. My very brief stopover there didn’t dissuade me of that notion. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2017, 4:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/56 "2017-08-02T04:29:30Z")
People from southern parts of Spain tend to find Old-Castillians “dry” and Basque/Navarrese/Aragonese downright scary\*. Both get solved, or at least tempered, by feeding the outsider. - Sense of humor tends to dead-and-buriedpan. May speak a non-romance second language full of /k/ and /x/ sounds. We speak too loudly and too quickly. May put people’s spines to the test (hint: “the customer is always right” is not the correct answer). ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/57 "2017-08-04T00:55:23Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > I find the negative comments about New Orleans to be incomprehensible. I’ve been there eight times and have never encountered friendlier people anywhere. From the wide range of responses so far about places literally all over the world, I suspect that our measurements are at fault. That is, asking individuals this question is the demonstrably wrong way to approach the question. That said, I don’t really know what the correct approach is. I live right next to N.O. I am not surprised by the negative comments, nor by the positive ones. I think, at least in some cases including N.O., it has much to do with how the visitor is perceived by the local. In some places, lets pick on the American South, people are sensitive to perceived stereotypes. If you think the visitor is afraid of you/looks down on you/has a negative opinion of you, your attitude to that person is going to be hurt. I find that here in the N.O. area. When someone from up North visits, it can take time for the locals to warm up to them. Once they do, people here are quite friendly and fun-loving. But if they make any mistakes… ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/58 "2017-08-04T01:55:20Z")
Understanding that there are tons of places I’ve never been, making it hard to give any kind of definitive answer, there’s no doubt that Boston has the least friendly population of any city I have visited(and I’ve been there a number of times and a number of different parts). The inhabitants aren’t hostile, exactly, so perhaps “not nice” isn’t quite accurate, but I find them tribal and largely uninterested in folks from elsewhere. (I also went to college in New England, and found the kids from Boston to be less open and harder to get to know than students from other places.) ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/59 "2017-08-04T03:31:40Z")
I don’t know if “rude” is the right term, but Seattle’s reputation is at least big enough to warrant its own Wikipedia page: > **[Seattle Freeze](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Freeze)** > > The Seattle Freeze is, according to widely held belief, a difficulty with making new friends in the U.S. city of Seattle, Washington, particularly for transplants from other areas. A 2005 article in The Seattle Times appears to be the first known use of the term, although the phenomenon was documented during rapid population increases in the early 1920s, World War II, and the 1980s. > Newcomers to the area have described Seattleites as socioculturally apathetic, standoffish, cold, distant, and d... ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2017, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591/60 "2017-08-04T04:16:58Z")
Boston people can be bad. I am from the Philly area, and I suspect we are worse. Still, people in and from Missouri all seem to have a chip on their shoulder about something they cannot explain. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-places-where-the-population-isnt-nice/792591.md?page=4)