In the US, “hi, how are you?” just means “hello.” This is very confusing for people coming from countries where “hi” means “hello” and “hi, how are you?” means “I really want to know how you and your family are doing. Is your mother’s hip better?”
A similar thing drives me crazy in Indian culture. If you’re at someone’s house, you are supposed to refuse any offer twice. It’s only the third offer that counts.
“Oh no, I couldn’t. My uncle, Admiral Ackbar, advised me against such things.” 
In Spain the last of anything is called “the one for shame” (el de la vergüenza) because of the notion that it’s being left behind because people are too self-conscious to take it. It’s considered rude to offer it to someone specifically as that puts them on the spot; instead, the host will say “only the one for shame left, anybody want to help me get rid of it?” If you want it, offer, if you don’t don’t… the “no, no, you” scenes that can take place if two people offer to help at the same time can go for several rounds and may end when a third person says “I’ll take charge” and grabs the offending food, leaving the other two all dressed up with nowhere to go.
People my age have a really hard time keeping host gifts and it annoys me slightly.
Some cultures don’t smile as a nice thing, or just default position, they only smile if something is funny. So I think it’s a sort of courtesy to smile as you approach someone you don’t know. I’m really thrown in countries where people approach me unsmilingly, it seems hostile to me. I have to really actively remind myself they are not smiley people but are probably still nice.
Anecdote:
We were road tripping around Eastern Europe, in Bosnia, and set up our tent along the side of a road in the verge of field. Suddenly a farmer was marching towards, looking very fierce, with a long pointy thing. I though he was coming to shoot us for trespassing! The long pointy thing was a cucumber, which he handed to us, still unsmilingly, clapped us on the back and went on his way. Now that’s nice: giving the travellers a cucumber. It was a good cucumber, too! You just have to get used to the lack of smiles.
Another thing: my downstairs neighbour is from an Eastern European country. When she comes round for coffee she offers to make the coffee and bring it! Instinctively, to me, that’s rude. It’s saying she doesn’t like my coffee (my coffee is definitely good, we have a good espresso machine and I’ll make it any way someone wants: lungo, cappuccino, latte etc). I think to her it’s a polite offer? Like she is contributing? I’m not really sure how to interpret it, actually. Does anyone have a suggestion?
ETA: just to be clear, it doesn’t bother me terribly, I don’t think she’s horribly rude or anything. I just find it odd. She always offers very kindly.
I don’t understand this sentence. Could you elaborate?
My best friend, who is 100% American, and super nice, for some reason never internalized the “smile for no reason” thing, so when an employee is like [beam] “Hi! How are you today?” she’ll just be like, “Give me a large Diet Coke” and she’s not meaning any rudeness at all, but I always kind of feel bad about it.
I was taught to always bring a bottle of wine or something when invited to someone’s home as a thank you for them going to the effort of hosting the get-together. If it doesn’t get used, they always try to give it back to me at the end of the night. Where I’m from, that simply isn’t done.
I think the standard is gravitating toward “if you’re going to bring food or drink, check with the host first.” Something that’s specified is more likely to be consumed.
I do ask if there’s anything I can bring and if they say yes, I bring that thing. They still try to give whatever’s left to me.
How about flowers? They can’t give those back.
A lot of the people in my social circle these days beg and plead with guests not to bring good or drink because the hosts are providing more than enough to feed and they don’t want to create more leftovers.
I’ve read this about Ireland as well. Something about the host making the offers to not look stingy, and the guest declining the offers to not look like a moocher. I have the opposite sensibility; declining a host’s hospitality strikes me as impolite.
Not putting someone “on the spot” when you’re not trying to intentionally make them uncomfortable or embarrass them.
I can’t count the number of times our vendor’s foreign employees phrase things in conference calls that make us Americans feel very uncomfortable and like we have to make excuses.
Things like “Why haven’t you done X yet?” or “When will you have X?” when it’s not actually due yet, and we just got part of the puzzle the day before. It’s like they’re trying to make us squirm, and it tends to make the Americans defensive and lash out; we generally try to come at asking those kinds of questions less bluntly when we don’t expect completion or perfection at that very moment. We save the blunt stuff for when they drop the ball in some fashion, but the Indians and Nigerians seem to just start out with it.
Bolding mine. That’s the option that immediately springs to my mind–to some people it is utterly unthinkable to accept something from someone without immediately offering something in return. It would make them feel like mooches. You’re offering the chance to come into your home and socialize, and she can’t very well counter that with an immediate offer to come to her home, because that looks like she thinks your apartment isn’t fit for visiting.
Then again, maybe she thinks your coffee is nasty and is too nice to say so. Just because you happen to think your machine and beans are the shit, that doesn’t mean someone else doesn’t think they’re just shit.
But a hostess gift isn’t intended to be consumed right then. It’s a gift. It doesn’t need to be served or set out.
And apparently that is changing. I’d honestly never heard of a host gift until I encountered this messageboard. Stuff brought to a party is intended for the party, not the host.
Which reminds me of something else, albeit almost an anti-courtesy. I thought it was normal for everyone to pay for their own meal when someone asks you to eat out with them. Apparently, there’s a courtesy of the host paying for the meal that I had not heard of. I think this one is less of a change over time and more to do with what socioeconomic circles we hang out in.
Yes, in India, it’s still quite rare to split checks. Indeed, if there is an entire evening planned – dinner, bar-hopping, movie, snacks, then it’s expected that the person who suggested the whole thing will pay for everything.
One that threw me for a loop is that if friends are going out to celebrate someone’s birthday, then the person whose birthday it is picks up ALL the checks (and during the climax of the celebrations gets cake smashed into his or her face). To me that sounds like a shitty birthday.
One of my relatives who has lives in America for decades went back for a visit and spent an entire day and night hanging out with his two best friends from his youth going all over Bombay to restaurants, bars, night clubs, etc.
He was very excited about it because he hadn’t had that much pure fun in years.
He was telling me and his wife – both if us Americans – and he ended his story with “And we took turns the whole night!”
The two of us, wide-eyed, exclaimed in stereo “Took turns DOING WHAT?!?!?!” Thoughts of some kind of night of sexual flowering or unspeakable perversity for three middle-aged, married, straight men.
The answer: “Took turns paying! What did you think?”
To us, taking turns paying was an underlying assumption. To him, taking turns paying for a night out was so unusual that it was the capper for the story.
I think it depends on whether there IS a host. Some friendly gatherings take place at one person’s house, but they aren’t hosting–they are just providing a place. Some gatherings at a restaurant may have been suggested by someone, but they aren’t hosting. That’s not at all the same as when you formally invite someone to something.
Doing that in parts of NYC, right here in the USA, can also cause the same reaction, lol.