I have had the pleasure of interacting with several Europeans this past week, an Englishman from Switzerland, a lovely German girl and some native Swedes. Unfortunately, I do not have the pleasure of interacting with furriners on a regular basis, and as friendly and nice as they are…
God damn they get up in your face when they talk to you. And stare, I mean s.t.ar.e. you in the eyes while conversing. Also, I was showing the Swedish guys something on my laptop and one of them put his hand on my chair and leaned in to get a better look at the screen which put his face right next to mine.
I’m not making broad generalizations, but I find it odd the 10 or so Europeans I’ve been around this week invade my personal space.
There is a distinct cultural difference. Desmond Morris talked about it in several of his books. If I remember the data correctly, he found that people in the US, for example, find the ideal conversation distance to be just far enough away that you could stick your finger in the other persons ear. Inhabitants of the Mid-East, on the other hand, seem to want to breathe in every breath you take, standing almost toe-to-toe. I’m sure others will be along shortly to add more anecdotal evidence to your study.
Most British people (i.e. me) don’t have the concept (construct) ‘personal space’; or indeed the concept of having it ‘invaded’. Just as we don’t have the concept ‘culture shock’.
It’s part of a more fundamental difference (between let’s face it very similar groups of people) whereby we don’t classify or categorise everything.
Maybe it’s a European thing; Bourdieu talks of classification as ‘symbolic violence’.
You don’t have culture shock? You mean to tell me that when faced with any culture on the face of the Earth, none of them would thoroughly surprise or overwhelm you? Sorry… I’m not buying it.
So far as personal space goes, yes… most other cultures have a more intimate conversational distance than we do and I distinctly remember being told about it numerous times in High School when studying Spanish.
Just remember that while we think of them as pushy and too familiar, they think of us as cold and distant… it goes both ways.
We most assuredly have personal space in Sweden (though it is possibly smaller than American personal space - I don’t know) but it is not so strict as to always trump practicality; if I need to get a bit closer than usual to get a proper look at something I’m being shown, I’ll get closer.
Two points: we haven’t codified the feeling of other buggers not behaving like us in the same way as Americans do; we are used to less affluence and therefore the gap between the way things are done doesn’t bother us so much. Thus, we’ll put up with bad service and walk longer distances - because we’re used to that.
But my main point remains the first (re construct and codification). Any merit to it?
Something I have noticed I do subconsciously. I use the handshake to let people know they shouldn’t need to come any closer. Once they get to the proper range I shove out my hand and nearly full extension to stop them in their tracks. They have to back up a bit to get in a handshake that doesn’t have their hand under their armpit and flap like a duck,
However I have noticed that many Europeans will attempt to pull me closer during the handshake(sometimes even going in for the hand on the shoulder if they are older), while I try to ward them off with an extended arm. Aussies and Kiwis are much better, we lean in and shake hands, then we both lean half a step back to create a proper conversational distance, which is over two arms length
Well, folks, I must be secretly an American but transplanted (transported? deported? ) at birth. Oh ye gods - will I have to do all that illegal immigrant, or get a green card thing?
I don’t like it if people chatting move too close, and will move back - shortly followed by a guilty feeling of “O this person will think me rude” but truthfully, there just has to be a certain distance and that’s that THere are some people who don’t have that issue, but I really don’t know how the statistics would break down.
This is probably why I recall commuting on the London tube (sodding Northern LIne ) with so much abhorrence.
btw - I can’t do the staring eyes thing either - perhaps these people have read the “how to inspire confidence and friendship in people” stuff that appearrs and actually made an effort to do the “always meet someone’s eyes, otherwise you will look as if you have something to hide” thing.
As a vague aside - what someone said about Americans being perceived as cold and distant? I thought that was meant to be a British stereotype?
Perhaps I should say that I lve in the city of Glasgow in Scotland, so, as a city person, whther I like it or not, I would also doubt that it has much to do with being used to wide open space or not.
What does bad service or walking somewhere instead of driving there have to do with culture shock? And Americans aren’t much more affluent than the British on the norm, if they are at all.
And Celyn, I was the one who remarked on Americans being percieved as cold and distant which I have heard we are. The British obviously share the stereotype and are arguably more famous for it but from what I understand, we’re thought of as stand-offish as well, especially in Latin America.
What? Because you have slightly different standards of living (walking more, putting up with a different standard of service) you can’t experience culture shock? We must have very different ideas of what culture shock is.
I’m sure things are very different between the two countries, but to make a point that 1. You, (as in “all British people”) don’t have a concept of personal space and 2. You are incapable of experiencing culture shock is, frankly, absurd.
So, there are no problems between immigrants and native English? Is that what you mean by not classifying everything and that classification is “symbolic violence”? I thought it was a given that the concept of personal space was a given, it is simply smaller or larger depending on the culture. I have the ‘concept’ of polygamy, but I wouldn’t want to be a part of it.
To clarify, British people (i.e. me) do get pissed off when other people don’t do things the way we’re used to doing them - indeed, the way things should be done - and we get a bit browned off when people get to close to us, or touch us on the arm. Whatever.
My point was that we don’t analyse it as much, and don’t have the same vocab for it.
Spanish people seem to have no concept of personal space. This extends to not realising that they need to get out of the way when you’re trying to walk past them in a confined area.
And Roger I can assure you that the British people I’ve known in Spain have noticed this phenomenon about the natives too.
While more and more Brits are getting into the habit of greeting each other with a kiss on the cheek continental-style, many Latin Americans I know refer to the practice of touching the front of the other person’s shoulder while performing this salutation as ‘el freno europeo’ - the European brake. The implication is that Europeans (read **northern ** Europeans) can only take so much intimacy and the ‘freno’ is aimed at preventing any potentially embarrassing chest to chest contact.
On the question of personal space, standing in line has to be the ultimate test. My most uncomfortable experience was in a supermarket queue in Haiti, after which I wondered whether I should take a pregnancy test. :rolleyes:
I met this Italian guy once. I know it is sometimes costumary for them to kiss you on both cheeks, but what I DIDN’T know is that they use tongue when they do it.
[QUOTE=SHAKES]
I met this Italian guy once. I know it is sometimes costumary for them to kiss you on both cheeks, but what I DIDN’T know is that they use tongue when they do it.QUOTE]
Must have been from Palermo, SHAKES.
I don’t quite know what Mr Thornhill is on about, since Desmond Morris categorised this sort of thing, and he’s a Brit. And I’m a Brit and I’ve experienced culture shock, both outbound and inbound (back home after 3 years in Asia).
I think it was in Desmon Morris’s Manwatching (a pretty rubbish book, full of insubstantiated Morris theories) that he cited a study where some Scandinavians joined a town council in the US (IIRC - it’s more than 20 years since I read the book so cut me some slack), and after a few weeks the difference in personal space made the male Americans think they were being propositioned by the Scandinavian women, and the female Americans very uncomfortable.
I suspect that’s slightly separate from ‘personal space’, and more to do with group behaviour in crowds. There’s been plenty of threads on the ‘do people walk on the right or left in different countries’ theme which have touched on that - and I vaguely remember a suggestion, not on this board, that southern Europeans weave their way through a crowd, while in northern Europe the crown is more ‘co-operative’. No cite, though.
I’m not talking just about crowd situations though. I’ve experienced plenty of situations in which a Spanish person will be standing still, in a narrow passageway, knowing I’m trying to get past them - and just not moving.
Hey, cluelessness is rampant. I’ve seen thousands of bona fide Merkuns standing stock still in the Crossroads of America, aka Times Square. Usually said person has a map, a baseball cap, and the biggest butt the Walmart sporting department sells polyester for. I think they’re just in their own personal space and aren’t thinking that people have to walk around them to get for work, fer chrissakes, go back to the malls!! The urban version, of course, is those folks who get on the subway and stand right in the doorways.
I’m seeing baby bro tomorrow–he spent most of the winter in Seville, Spain, courtesy of the Air National Guard. He’s already told me about the mullets and the chain-smoking, so I’ll ask about personal space.
Also, you can’t really quantify Europeans, since there are so damn many of us, and from such widely different cultures, for the same reason that you can’t generalise about Americans: I’d be willing to bet that someone who grew up on a ranch in Montana has a very different idea of personal space from someone who grew up in Brooklyn.
) at birth. Oh ye gods - will I have to do all that illegal immigrant, or get a green card thing? 
) with so much abhorrence.