Are there any places where the population isn't nice?

[Siam_Sam]

Well, there you go. The diabolical bastards will figure out what you want, then always do the opposite!

[asahi]

@septimus

Perhaps (let’s be PC ) each culture has comparable numbers of nice and un-nice, but the niceness and unniceness take different forms.

Most people who’ve spent time in Paris (including Parisians!) agree that Parisians are arrogant. This can be seen in a favorable light — they are self-confident and candid — but it is distinctive. I lack the experience to comment on France-XParis. Traveling Americans are also sometimes noted for arrogance but it has a quite different tone from Parisian arrogance. New Yorkers are noted for a certain unniceness but I have no personal experience of that. Thais are noted for friendliness, generosity and maintaining good spirits, but the culture has its share of unniceness as well.

I’m not an expert on Paris by any means but when I finally did go there in 2015, I never got the sense that Parisians were any (or less) rude or obnoxious than people in any big city I’ve ever been to in the world.

[asahi]

@rbroome

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…

The other part of it is, they live there. NO is their home. It’s not ‘special’ to them in the way that it is to a traveler who goes there without any knowledge of the city or its people, only expectations of what he or she will experience.

Another thing is that not everyone who lives in NO is from there. Because tourism, professional dining, and hospitality are big businesses there, it’s one of those cities that brings in outsiders who will stay for a few years before moving on to somewhere else. So it’s possible that not everyone a visitor speaks to is from NO. They might be just there doing their jobs or just getting off work and trying to forget their jobs.

Beyond that, NO is also a city with problems and simmering tensions. It’s a city with violent crime and tourists sometimes get caught up in it, just like people who live there. It’s understandable that people in NO keep their distance and want their space, especially if someone with a midlife crisis is living it up by being a drunken ass. The locals have seen how it plays out and it can get ugly.

[Chefguy]

@Shagnasty

I have spent days walking around Paris by myself and have never experienced any rudeness either. Then again, I don’t speak more than a few words of French. They could have been badmouthing me the whole time and I would never know. My strategy was to just walk up to friendlier looking younger people and start talking in English. If they replied back in French, I would just look confused because I was and we were deadlocked. They would start speaking in English to this hopeless rube because they figured out quickly that was the only way to get anything done and have me go away. It works like a charm. You just don’t want to be caught in the grey area of pretending to know French if you aren’t truly fluent. Many of them seem to be sympathetic to the full-blown, monolingual, American retard if you are polite about it though.

I’ve spent a lot of time in Paris, making repeated trips for both business and vacation. I have never been treated poorly by the people there. It’s a very tired meme that continues to be perpetuated by people who wouldn’t know a Frenchman if one fell on them. Most unpleasant encounters are likely due to Americans acting like arrogant Americans.

I found Boston to be fairly intolerant of outsiders when I lived there. They particularly didn’t like people from the military base I was on, although they sure liked the dollars we brought in.

At first blush, it seemed to me that the Portuguese were very cold to outsiders, but this is because for many decades it was a very closed society and the people tended to be clannish and dour. When you get to know them, they are funny and generous, particularly younger generations.