So what do British people talk about when they don’t know each other much, aside from the weather?
Although I don’t want to generalize, I worked for an Israeli operation where my superiors were incredibly rude to me. I was the one non-Israeli employee and often they would just swap to speaking in Hebrew while I was sitting there, everyone knowing that I couldn’t understand. I’m sure half the time they were talking about me. They’d send emails back and forth about me, many very unflattering, that half the time would come across my inbox in later incarnation anyway. Calling me lazy, etc.
Also, I noticed that my bosses would state their opinions as fact, and in a confrontational way. “Why are you doing Y! X is the best way to do this!” And then I’d say, uh, well, I was doing Y b/c of this reason. “Well, no, then, Z is better!” It was like they would come out of the gate assuming they were right until they were proven wrong, even if they didn’t know very much about the topic, as opposed to throwing out their suggestions in a collaborative way. I spent most of my time there feeling like they thought I was an idiot. Like I was constantly defending myself.
Dunno how much of that was because I was female and non-Israeli, and how much of it was a cultural misunderstanding.
I think Americans are incredibly indirect, in a smile to your face, stab you in the back sort of way.
Brits are much more straightforward.
Kiwis are blunt, but in a polite and humorous way.
Israelis are blunt and honest and rude. Like my Israeli friend told me: I’m disgusted you’re sullying my nice hybrid when you drive a gas guzzler yourself.
I’m Israeli so I understood what he really meant was: I still like you. 
I think it’s a case of “Why do you want to know, and how is it any of your business?”
When I was backpacking through Indonesia with my (then) girlfriend, random people on the bus would ask us if we were married and how many kids we had - and if “no” and “none”, why not? When was the wedding? Why don’t you have kids?
To them, this was friendly & sociable. To us, being Canadians, this was unaccountably intrusive.
The Irish are the least blunt people I’ve ever met. They are so intent on not offending anyone that they drive me mad.
Me: Can I get you some tea?
Irish person: Oh, no. I’m grand.
Me: So, how was the flight? Blah, blah…
Irish person (thinking): I sure would like some tea. Surely he’ll ask again.
Me: Blah, blah, blah…
Irish person (thinking): What an arsehole. Is he ever going to get me that tea?
My wife, entering the room: Why didn’t you make tea? I’m so sorry. I’ll get the tea right away.
Me: He said he didn’t want any tea.
Irish person: I couldn’t possibly have any tea.
Wife: Just a drop. I’ll make it right away.
Irish person: No, no. I have to be going.
Wife: You’ll have tea. You will. You will, you will, you will, you will.
Irish person: I’m dying for a bit of tea.
Me: What the fuck is wrong with you people?
That’s funny, because what I remember most about being in Brazil was being offered stuff over and over after I’d said “no.” (Much like the tea example above, but inversed.)
Brazilian: Would you like some tea?
Me: No, thanks. I’m great.
{chit-chat)
Brazilian: Can I make you some tea?
Me: No, I’m still fine. Thanks though!
{chit-chat}
Brazilian: So, how about that tea?
Me, thought but not said: ARE YOU DEAF?!?!?
Me, out loud: No, thanks
Brazilian: Oh, that’s right. You’re American. You mean it when you say “no thanks.”
Apparently, it’s the custom to be offered something repeatedly, as it’s considered rude to take them up on the offer the first time. Or something like that.
Although in Newfoundland, they know your religion from how pronounce your words and your last name - of course, they also know all your relatives back to Adam.
Quite some years back I was attending a software class with a gentleman from Jerusalem. The poor guy was surviving on water and some sort of cookies because he couldn’t get Kosher food. I offered to help him out as best a gentile could.
While riding the DC metro system on this quest he and I would get on the escalator and he would stand on the left side. I commented something to the effect of, “Ya need to stand on the right so people can walk past ya on the left. There’s no signs telling ya this. It’s just the way we do things 'round here.”
His comment: “If this were Israel, people would be yelling at me about this.”
My earliest memory under the heading of “We do things a little different where I come from, buckeroo.”
BTW we FINALLY found a place in Adams Morgan owned by an Arab who let the guy into his kitchen so he could prepare a Kosher meal.
Asking someone what they do or what school/university they went to can come across as intrusive or judgmental, depending on the situation. I’ve had people judge me harshly because I have a degree from a university they consider “posh”, and I assume those people react that way because they have been made to feel inferior about their own education. It’s a foreign concept to me, literally, coming from a pretty much classless Scandinavian society where your background matters very little, but Brits tend to judge you on accent, eloquence, appearance, the way you dress, and a number of other things. They also tend to get quite upset when you confront them about it.
It took me a long time to learn the social codes, and I’m still too blunt and sometimes downright rude by British standards. I don’t say “sorry”, “please” and “thank you” or introduce myself enough. When shaking hands I always forget that they’re likely to do a “dead fish”, and I end up unintentionally crushing their limp fingers with my grip of death. I learned very quickly not to reply honestly when they ask how I am, because they really don’t want to know. I’ve also learned not to accept favours unless I know they are offered genuinely, not just out of politeness.
They say one of the signs you’ve been in Thailand too long is when you take a taxi, you start asking the driver how much money he makes and how many children he has. 
Bear in mind that there’s a bit of a translation error here: “yelling” at someone, to an Israeli, means repremanding them or giving them a piece of their mind, with or without raising one’s voice. I’ve “yelled” at people practically in a whisper.
But yeah, someone would have said something.
A couple more Israeli anecdotes:
We were mountain biking and the company ran out of gloves. Me: “Oh, ok” Israeli: “But we paid for this!”.
On a private mini-bus the driver said we would stop for lunch for an hour. Me: (thinking) “That seems long, I’ll ask the driver if we can leave quicker when we get off”. Israelis: (Shouting immediately) “No, that’s too long!”
For convoluted and irrelevant reasons I ended up sharing a hotel room with an Israeli girl (I’m a guy). Her: “Touch me or my stuff and I’ll kill you”
On another side note, some 20 somethings Chinese are incredibly direct, blunt, and rude. I think its a combination of the “Little Emperor” dynamic and a society unwilling to directly call them on their bullshit.
Israelis absolutely do this all the time. I don’t know why they do it, but, besides the French, they are the only ones that I’ve experienced doing this. The only time a, say, German will talk to another German in front of me in German is to ask how to say something in English. I don’t think it’s a language thing because as far as English goes Israelis are pretty darn good.
She definitely may have been flirting with you… 
Or not.
Only one way to find out. Of course, if you were wrong, you would have ended up dead! :eek: 
To an extent, I think it’s because we’re an “immigrant society.” At my company, there are at least 20-25 Russian speakers out of about 100 employees. They talk to each other in Russian all the time, including if I’m around but they’re not immediately addressing me. We just tune it out.
And, of course, nobody actually stops and thinks “hey, self, maybe in other cultures this is considered rude and might hurt someone’s feelings, and you should talk English with Moshe here…?” We are Israeli after all. What are “someone’s feelings,” again…? 
Israeli POV:
But they DID pay for it. Maybe the company *had *gloves somewhere, but was too lazy to look for them. Maybe it didn’t feel like handing out the newer, expensive gloves. What’s important is that they didn’t want to hear excuses - the company should do its job.
I don’t understand - if you’d talked to the driver privately, how would the others know the break was shortened? And what if people wanted it to be that long? No, it’s best to resolve matters publicly and immediately.
You see, from your POV, the driver was the authority figure; he decided how long the break would be, and the best you could do is ask him politely to chnage his mind. Whereas to the Israelis, you were in a democracy.
Curious, both my experience and that of matt_mcl is that they do speak in German in front of people or even to people all the time, knowing perfectly well that you don’t speak it. I was part of a conversation where us foreigners (French from Strasbourg, two Spaniards and a half-dozen Indians) all thought it was terribly rude, while our German colleagues thought it would have been terribly rude to behave as if German hadn’t been our native language… hello, it isn’t! Curiouser and curiouser, women were a lot more likely to be willing and able to help us with language questions, and were a lot more likely to have the mindset of “this person’s German is worse than my English, I’ll try to speak English”. I think there probably are regional differences as well; Germany is one of those countries which are a lot less homogeneous than they look like - after all, some of its regions have very little more than the language and the central government in common.
From the same team, and I’ve told it before:
Klaus to Philippe (the Frenchman), in German: yaddayaddayadda…
P to K: yadda
K to P: nein, nein, yadda! What do you think, Nava?
me: What do I think about what?
K: What we were talking about.
me: Sorry, Ich spreche nur ein kleines bitschen Deutsche (“I speak only a little bit of German”, and it’s probably misspelled), I’m afraid I don’t know what were you talking about.
K: :eek:
P: :rolleyes:
It was Philippe who explained, Klaus was busy for quite a while digesting the notion of “when you hire people asking them to speak English but not German, you may get someone who speaks English but not German”.
I’ve been at a meeting in Italy, I was the only non-Italian in the room, and the meeting went on in Italian. I speak some Italian, but not enough to follow the conversation; they did explain to me beforehand (in English or French) what they would be discussing. I had no problem with this. If I’m in their country, I cannot expect them to speak some other language than their own, especially if I’m the only one there who doesn’t speak it (well). And given that some of my Italian colleagues’ English skills are acceptable, but not great, it makes sense to hold the meeting in a language in which they won’t be shy to speak up.
Football. Weather. Did you see such and such on TV last night. Weather. Would you like some tea.
When I was a kid, my grandmother, a depression-era Oklahoman, told me not to accept a dinner invitation at a friend’s house unless it was offered twice. Apparently, the first invitation may just be a polite way of saying, “We’re about to have dinner. Why don’t you go home now?”
I never would have considered how “yelling” could be anything other than screaming. That’s good to know. If this thread and the one about asking for something in non-obvious ways has taught me anything it’s the effect of cultural biases (my own) on understanding others. And how really tough it is to focus on all the elements of communication; words, body language, national origin, ethnicity.
Thanks.