The little cultural differences – thank yous, hellos and small talk
Note: This is an older article that I’ve written in early 2019 and it was just sitting in the “drawer”. I was in Canada only about 3 moths so still quite a newbie. However, especially the later part of the article is something I contemplate about frequently.
We are all part of human race and when it comes down to it we all share the same joys and pains. We struggle to meet our needs depending on where we are in the Maslow’s pyramid. However, even when in the biggest scheme of things we are all the same, on the micro level we can see some striking differences. And this, my friends, is called the culture shock.
Ok, guilty as charged. The introduction was maybe a little bit exaggerated. To talk about culture shock in the days of globalization and ever present possibility to look up information on the internet, see the different lifestyle in TV shows, hearing the stories of our friends who travelled to far places or even having your own experiences from travels.
But honestly I must say that even though all of the above mentioned things made me prepared for what to expect I still got surprised, or only after I experienced it first hand I realised, how little differences in customs and culture can feel so strong.
One of the cultural stereotypes of Canadians says that everyone here is so polite and kind. The place where I first realised and experienced this was using the public transport. In the bus you get to be in the direct contact with the driver. Now I need to make a note about public transport in my home town in case there happen to be some reader who randomly found this page as for now I guess everyone reading this is my actual friend from my home town 😀
Back to the point Sasha! So back home the public transport buses in the city usually protect the driver and the passenger from any interaction possible. Now when I think about it the reason probably is that we are grumpy nation anyway so we try not to raise our level of grumpiness by interacting with other people (another cultural stereotype for the sake of the text, ha!). So in Slovakia the bus driver is protected behind its wheel in a sort of cubicle made of plexiglass.
In Vancouver, unless taking an express line that tends to be very busy, all the passengers board the bus with the front door where they greet the driver, tap their card or purchase the ticket on the spot. Very similar as in our intercity buses back home. With the difference that the driver here is very often in a good mood and you wish each other a nice day.
But that is not all my friends, the most mind blowing thing which caught me by surprise the first time I’ve witnessed it, and it still does, is the moment when passengers get off the bus. I am sitting in my seat, feel a bit of tension as I am still new in the town, watching for the stop where I need to get off, trying to observe the little nuances and little unwritten rules. The bus stops, the back door opens and out of the blue a loud “THANK YOUUUU!!!!” travels across the whole bus to the driver. “HAVE A GOOD NIGHT!” The driver shouts back. Speechless I observe this pattern for the rest of my journey. When it’s time for me to get off, I awkwardly push the door to open and mumble an inaudible thank you myself. I must say I love this. It’s such a small simple thing that just boosts your mood and makes you feel much better.
So after a few weeks I find myself on a bus, confidently pushing the stop button for my stop shouting out loud THANK YOU, HAVE A GOOD DAY at the driver and moving on with my day.
Of course, this does not often happen when the bus is too busy or in the trains as those are driverless 😀
Greetings and the rules of small talk
So in the light shed above on how people shout “thank-yous” here at each other there is one thing that is out of this line and I cannot quite comprehend it. The elevators are a special place where the rules of small talk do not apply. Call me old fashioned but every time I enter a small space being it an elevator or a waiting room at a clinic I tend to greet the people in it. We are stuck in there together for a while so I can at least acknowledge your existence, right?
What happens in Vancouver when I enter an elevator? Best case scenario, the other person at least looks at me a gives me a smile. Worst case, earplugs and staring at the phone. When I say Hi!, or Hello!, it really seem to throw the people off and mumble a surprised but usually smiling hello back. Maybe I should start a new trend 🙂
On the other hand, the never ending small talk and throwing the How are yous at everyone is driving me nuts! It became here such an integral part of starting a conversation with basically anyone, people sometime even answer “I’m good thanks!” even when you actually instead of Hi, how are you? Asked “Hi, How can I help you?” (true story, witnessed this several times when working in retail for 2 months)
But how are you is not only used for customer-seller relationship. It also appears in office environment. Meeting in the office kitchen in the morning with your co-worker making a coffee and you get the Good morning followed by a well-practiced How are you question. Sometimes I go along and to the most useless conversation exchange that doesn’t bring any value to anyone which goes like this:
“Hello/Good morning/Hi! How are you?
“Hi! Good! Yourself?”
“Good, thank you!”
In order to get the full picture, imagine this exchange with all sorts of different intonation on different phrases and syllables. For some people it became a sort of mannerism, others are experimenting with the intonation to maybe not get bored to death while going through it.
Sometimes I go along. But sometimes I feel rebellious! What I’d do is that I either don’t ask back – this usually when people come to me and I know they want something to make them come sooner to the point. But sometimes I actually start to really reply genuinely to the question and force the other person to engage in a conversation (or at least hear them out my weekend plans or what happened last weekend). I know, I’m going to hell! 😛
Also another place where you can get how are yous are the hiking or biking trails. While hiking and passing others you at least usually engage in some sort of information exchange – how far to the peak, what are the trail conditions, where are you coming from, etc. On a bike you just pass someone by, make an eye contact and you might get a “How are you question” without any chance to reply because you are far gone by the time it’s your turn. I still don’t know properly how to answer this questions. It puzzles me, and I get always a little anxious 😀 well, maybe I crack this down one day.
Disclaimer: No harm intended. I think we just don’t like the fluffy talk in that corner of the world where I come from. But honestly the default niceness of people over here with the bit of a less formal professional culture (meaning the way you interact with your senior colleagues or executives) is a very eye opening thing and I hope we could take a little bit of that and throw it in the heart of Europe. 🙂