Natalie Portman being confused by the fact that you have to say “hi” to someone before starting a conversation in France got me like ?????
“I feel there’s a lot of rules of politeness and codes of behavior there you have to follow. […] A friend of mine taught me that when you go in some place you have to say “bonjour” before you say anything else, then you have to wait two seconds before you say something else. So if you go into a store you can’t be like “do you have this in another size,” or they’ll think you’re super rude and then they’ll be rude to you.” [X]
So that’s it guys. French are not rude, we just don’t like it when people don’t say “Hello” or “Hi” when they start a conversation.
Don’t everyone say “Hi” before they ask something to someone? What’s next? Saying please is also a french thing or others countries does that too?
Canada is similar. We say sorry and please. The Hello thing seems strange, but it actually makes sense.
Bro, this threw me for a loop when I moved up north. Like in the southern United States you say “Hi, how are you?” And then make a few seconds of small talk before you ask your question or order your food and when I went to Connecticut they were like “What do you want?” Without any hello or anything. In other places they just STARE at you waiting on you to place your order and gtfo.
I laid my hand over my chest the first time, and the only way to describe my look was “aghast” before I said “Good lord!” My husband said it’s the most southern thing he’s seen me do. He thought it was hilarious. But…. Like??? That’s rude as fuck??????? Don’t y’all say say “Hello” before throwing your demands at someone??
maybe this is why everyone thinks new yorkers are rude
this is absolutely why ppl think new englanders r rude. no one has any fucking manners
african culture, at least in ghana, demands you greet a person before you ask them something. if youre in an open market they may even ignore you if you dont.
We do this in Australia as well. If you just started straight off saying “yeah I want XXXX” we’d think you’re rude as all fuck. You say hi, then make your request. It’s basic acknowledgement of the other person as a person rather than some random request-filling machine.
Huh. Speaking as a New Englander, I usually go with “Excuse me,” but sometimes “hi” or “hey,” but with no pause – it’ll be, “Excuse me, hi, I was looking for X?” From my POV, it seems rude to get too chatty and waste some stranger’s time; I assume they have better things to do than make small talk with me, so I just get my request out there so they can answer me and get back to whatever needs doing. I always thank folks for their help afterwards, if that helps?
(The rules of etiquette are strange. People say New Englanders are rude and cold, but once during an unexpected snowstorm here in Seattle, my car got stuck and I was standing by the side of the road at a busy intersection in the snow for half an hour waiting for my housemate to come pick me up, and not a single person stopped. Back in Massachusetts, every other car on the road would’ve been pulling up to check to see if I was okay, if my phone was working, did I need a lift, etc.)
No but this was the first thing my cousin told me in France? you never ever ever start a conversation with anyone, not even like “Nice weather today, huh?” without saying Bonjour first. You HAVE to greet them or, just like Ghana, they’ll ignore the shit out of you, you rude little fucker
(And “excuse me” or “pardon me” doesn’t cut it. you still have to open with bonjour)
[and I can’t speak for New England but coming from Chicago and then moving Out West where the culture is VERY influenced by the South and DETERMINED to think of themselves as small town folk… I HATE when I have to make small talk before ordering food??? Like, if it’s a coffee shop that’s pretty much empty I’ll chit chat for a few seconds, but I’m still not going to make inane conversation about the weather unless the weather is extreme.
In a big city it is rude as fuck to waste my time making small talk with me when we are not even friends or neighbors??? I am here to get shit done. There are four other people in line behind me, and I don’t want to waste their time. I am here, I HAVE MY ORDER ALREADY DECIDED BY THE TIME I GET TO THE FRONT BECAUSE I AM NOT A CAVE WOMAN, and I am being polite by saying both Please and Thank You and not wasting other people’s daylight.]
I live in a small northern city, and I feel it would be rude to engage someone in more than maaaaaybe a sentence of small talk before placing my order. In addition to feeling I was wasting their time, I’d feel like I was demanding emotional labour (small-talk is emotional labour for *me*) that they weren’t being paid to give.
so bizarre. New Yorker here. Saying hi, how are you, etc before these kinds of commercial interactions is what’s rude to me – because ffs, there are people in line behind you, we have lives, move it along. It’s really just a dramatic cultural difference – but borne of a real practical necessity.
Oh my god saying ‘hi’ takes less than A SINGLE SECOND YOU ARE NOT WASTING ANYBODY’S TIME
In Spain you have to say hello to people before you talk to them even people who work in retail deserve that bare minimum courtesy hello??
Transplanted New Yorker here, and the feeling here is: people who work in retail deserve the bare minimum courtesy you would afford anyone else, which is to not waste their time. You maybe say a half-second “hi” and/or possibly “excuse me” to be sure you have their attention, then you get to the point as quickly and concisely as possible. You don’t wait to get a “hi” back, you probably don’t ask “how are you”, you definitely don’t talk about the weather. You smile and keep your tone of voice courteous-to-friendly, you say please, you thank them when you’re done, and you do. not. waste. their. time.
Except ”time” is really only shorthand for the concept: you don’t intrude on their lives more than you have to. NY is a very very crowded city which allows for very little personal space, so New Yorkers have developed a form of courtesy that involves minimizing our unavoidable intrusions on each other. Which is why we hold doors without making eye contact, and why we tend to feel that in any interaction with a stranger, it’s actively rude to do anything but get to the point immediately.
I’ve had long talks with people about how “polite” in NYC/NJ/New England and polite in the Midwest are very, VERY different, and this thread nails it. The Midwest (and the South, and apparently France) are very hung up on the forms of politeness, including the fake caring about other people’s days and making smalltalk. NYC-folk, instead, are focused on the effects for politeness. Am I intruding on your day? How can I make this as efficient as possible so that you can do what you want/need to be doing?
The big example I use is a tourist with a map. If you stop in the middle of the sidewalk in NYC, people get annoyed and sometimes angry (I’ve seen this happen at the top of an escalator in Penn Station…) but if you pull out of the way, someone who has a moment will come and offer to help you, generally fairly quickly.
We greet each other in Turkey with a simple “merhaba” (hello) as well! We also use “selam”, short for “selamın aleyküm” to which the person we speak to replies with “aleyküm selam”.
Greeting one another is a very important aspect of our daily lives, you see.
I say “hi” or “hey” then if and only if they ask about my day first, I say “good, you?” in response, they say “good” or “can’t complain” and we move along to business. If they don’t ask how I am, etc, I don’t ask them
I live in GA but I’m from NY and I was never taught to just start asking for shit without AT LEAST saying hi. I don’t do small talk though, that’s a southern thing but I mean even my family that’s still in NY at least fucking greets people before asking for something and use please and thank you. It’s simple manners.
I am never fucking going to New York like y’all’s really just bark orders at people and it’s okay? my feelings are hurt and it hasn’t even happened to me lol
this thread is so interesting and I’m so glad someone added the New Englander perspective ahhh.
i totally understand where southerners/other areas are coming from when they want the polite niceties and since moving to CA I have become “nicer” but honestly back home being curt and to the point isnt deemed as “not nice” necessarily. Like I’m a nice person but when someone asks me too many questions or greets me with too much familiarity I actually get suspicious of them, and I think that’s a really New Yorker attitude. Like, what does this person want from me? It’s sad, I guess, if you’re from ANYWHERE else, but it’s also pretty understood that everyone is busy and going about their business in NE, if they need something they will ask but if they don’t then go about your own.I grew up in CT on the border between CT and NY btw, so even though I was in the “country” in a tiny ass town I feel like a lot of us still behaved a bit like New Yorkers.
Once I walked into a shop and there was a sign taped to the counter in front of the cashier that said “I’m not rude, I’m from California”. Well ok, maybe you’re not rude in California, but you’re clearly living and workiing here now, so here in Oklahoma, you’re rude. You’re also rude if you make exactly zero attempt to fit into the culture of the place in which you are currently living and instead hang up a sign telling people how rude you aren’t.
As someone who moved from a small Midwestern town right on the Mason Dixon line to Chicago, I completely relate to the New Yorkers on this post. Intruding on someone is considered very rude in a big northern cities in the US.
When you live in a big city people are EVERYWHERE. There is never a time when you are completely alone. As someone who grew up around farms I was surprised at the emotional effects of never really truly being alone. Even if you are in your own apartment, the noise of your neighbor’s and the street intrudes into your awareness all the time. And so you develop a bubble. There’s a certain amount of space around you that is yours and is only to be broken by the people you have let into your life. Eye contact, physical contact, and greetings all follow the rule of the bubble that determines who, under what circumstances, how long the interaction, and what kind of contact is permitted.
Anyone who breaks the bubble, invariably, wants something from you. Most often, if someone breaks the rules, they want something from you that you do NOT want to give. And so if you break the rules of contact, you are going to be treated with suspicion.
Then I moved to the Deep South and that was another adjustment entirely. I worked in a largish regional hospital and we were “required” by hospital administration to make eye contact and greet everyone you passed in the hallway. That felt so intrusive to me, both on the receiving end and foisting it on everyone else regardless of their desires.
Hearseeno 