In my job I sometimes hear pitches from Japanese game developers. It’s often a maddening experience because it seems like they never just come right out and say what they want to make. The project is usually described in vague, open-ended terms and specific questions are quickly deflected off into generalities.
With American developers the exchange is usually much more blunt. I ask simple direct questions. They give simple direct answers. I’m sure from the Japanese perspective our back and forth is very rude and brusque, but being an American, that’s the style I prefer.
How does this generalize to other cultures? Who’s ruder than Americans? Who’s more maddeningly indirect than the Japanese?
The Japanese are definitely who I think of as the least. Just reading about this aspect of Japanese culture in a book on learning Japanese had me thinking “Quit being so fucking coy and say ‘yes’ already!”
I don’t know how we are perceived by other nationalities, but I think Canadians are less blunt than Americans. When some of you describe how Southerners won’t insult people directly, that sounds really familiar to me (how a Canadian says you’re completely full of shit - “Well, I don’t know about that”). I’d say we are mid-range between US Americans and the Japanese.
There is a “head roll” expression if seen in some of the Indian contractors we’ve employed that I cannot determine if it’s mean to be “yes” or “no”. It’s pretty much 50.1% of each.
Italian-Americans from the Northeast at least can be downright rude and overly aggressive about what they want. I am pretty sure that is well documented in the media. I was married to one of the nicer and more elegant ones and I never got used to the conversational style because I am Southern and we just don’t talk that way. The things I heard come out of their mouths made my hair stand on end. I personally heard the less than subtle hint of a hit on people that made them mad and they weren’t even people involved in that type of thing but they know the phone numbers because they are apparently given to them at birth. Real Italians are all over the place because the country is fairly new and diverse but the rudest encounters in my life have taken place in Italy. Half of those involved Alitalia (The Italian state airline :eek::eek::eek:).
Words like blunt and rude are ambiguous and you can get different answers from people with different perspectives.
With the exception of my wicked stepmother, in the last 40 years only 1 person in the U.S.A. has mentioned my unusual-looking fingernails to my face. In Thailand it was often one of the first topics of conversation. (I say “was” because my fingernails look better now, thank you!)
(The one person in U.S.A. who did mention my fingernails was a blackjack dealer. And she only mentioned them in response to my direct question: “Why do you remember me? I’ve not been in this casino for 5 years!”)
Fourthed (or so…) for Israelis probably being the bluntest.
Sometimes I think some of my compatriots positively enjoy parading “look how direct and in your face we are!” The rest of the time I’m sure of it…
You can be pretty sure that it means “yes” (perhaps with a dash of “it isn’t our favorite choice but it can be done”).
In my experience what counts as being blunt in one culture is just common parlance in another and vice versa. In some places it is considered incredibly rude to ask about or comment on a persons weight/marital status/income/etc. while in other cultures it doesn’t matter at all, and something equally random becomes the object of local prudism.
I agree, though, that the Japanese seem the least blunt of all.
I don’t think it goes by something as big as nationallities. Getting information off a certain kind of Swiss (very common around Basel but sighted in Geneva as well) is torture of the highest grade; if you ask a question with an answer that’s not “yes” or “no” they stare and after what feels like a couple of eternities ignore you; if you ask a question whose answer is “no” they look offended, baffled or hurt… it turns finding the bathroom into a game of 20-questions-plus.
Other Swiss have no problem stating exactly what they want, how they want it and why they want it that way and saying the dread word “no”.
I know this is British specific, but here, Yorkshiremen pride themselves on being blunt and have a stock phrase they’ll often recite to you in business meetings, which goes along the lines of ‘I’m from Yorkshire, I call a spade a spade’ followed by some blunt, insulting remark, to which I normally respond ‘that’s just your excuse to be bloody rude’.
I’ve found that as well but instead of commenting on it I go out of my way to be even ruder but in a reasonable tone.
One of my responses to a yorkshireman who when discussing financial matters kept playing at being the blunt, outspoken, down to earth type was…
“Ah yes but to be fair you people up north are as thick as shit when it comes to money probably because you lot never have any.”
Whan he looked at me in astonishment, not being used to having dished up what he normally dished out I said…
“I realise that yorkshiremen don’t like any beating about the bush when it comes to business and that you appreciate candour”.
After that I was as gratuitiously offensive at every eventuality and the only response from the" gruff straight speaker" was a somewhat cowed mumbling.
If I’d have spoken to a southerner like that there would have been a fight, work or not.
But a southerner wouldn’t have mouthed off like that in the first place.
Its amazing how those people who pride themselves on their “honesty” really don’t like receiving it back.
Israelis yes, and Persians. I work in an area that is heavily populated by both groups, and God bless 'em, they don’t go out of their way to be nice to you. That being said, my current boyfriend is Persian and I adore him, but some of the things his family says to him make my hair stand on end. His mother will bluntly tell him “Who would date you?” and bitch his sister out over her weight (she’s hardly fat, but with the way her mother treats her she’ll probably end up bulimic). He’s hesitant to introduce me to her because “I just know she’ll be so mean to you.” I’ve promised him that if she asks me anything like, “Why are you with my son?” I’m going to reply with a straight face, “Because of his huge dick.”
I didn’t want to be the one saying it was us (Dutch), but I’ve heard from quite a number of foreigners livig here that it is something that takes some time to get used to.
Corresponding to Israelis’ bluntness, people tend not to take it too seriously. I mean, people will say incredibly rude things to each other that would probably end friendships in the US, but Israelis don’t seem to care that much. They just go on being friends, and offering up each other completely blunt unasked-for opinions. You just have to have a thick skin, I guess.
Bizarrely, I once had a conversation with an Israeli friend that went like this:
He was eating something totally ghetto that looked absolutely disgusting. I forget what, something like bread covered in mayo.
Me: That’s nasty.
Him: You’re being so rude! In Israel, it isn’t okay to say things like that to people!
Me: hysterical laughter
Him: I’m serious!
Me: more laughter
I have no idea what was going on there, because, uh, Israelis say shit like that to each other all the time. I think maybe he didn’t appreciate American commentary on what turned out to be something he used to eat in the army all the time, so it had some kind of nostalgia factor.
