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Eastern Europeans (Poland/Ukraine/Russian) call it the American Smile, and they think it's less trustworthy...like we smile to get things out of them, or that it's an insincere smile.
Those eastern europeans don't usually smile up front, but when you actually get a chance to know them they love to smile. They prefer stoic faces
maybe the difference between 'earning' a smile and being owed something for smiling.
pretty interesting stuff, cultures.
Yes. We didn't get a lot of smiles unless they were younger people or trying to sell you something. It did take some getting used to. When we came back through France on the way back and they were smiley and happy again. It was like oh awesome. But it's not that it was bad. It was just different.
Three quick stories. One day when I was in Saint Petersburg, I had gotten off track around this big park to get back to the bus taking us back to the ship, it wasn't a big cruise ship. It was a river ship. But very nice. And I have this little map that looked like those maps you used to get at AstroWorld with the cartoon looking buildings but I just was confused as to where I was. This is 2012 and I did have an iPhone, but it was harder to get Service over there at that time. It was more spotty, not like the plans they have now. When I traveled to Finland and other things in the last few years, I've had no problem using my phone.
But anyway, I was walking down the street and I tried to stop this very pretty typically blonde Russian woman walking down the street and I raised my finger to say excuse me and she pulled up her hand and said in English mind you, "no English". I was like OK. I walked a little bit more down the street and I saw a guy in about his 30s and I started to say the same thing and he just waved me off. He wouldn't even talk to me.
So then I came upon a hotel and I thought well maybe someone in there will speak English. Russia is not like Germany. Obviously there's not a lot of people speaking English unless they're in some of the service areas or if they do they don't really want you to know. You're not going to see English signs in addition to the Russian ones.
And when I walked in, I asked the guy at the desk if he spoke English and he said he did and I put the map down on the desk and I said OK I'm very confused. Where exactly can I get to the Pushkin statue which is where I kinda needed to be close to and he pointed way off the whole entire map on the desk so I was in a complete wrong area, but he told me how to get back to where I was. I had missed the bus back, but we were in town for a few days so I ended up figuring out the subway system and just took it down to where the water was. I literally had no idea if that would get me there, but it did.
Second little story is I had lunch on Red Square in Moscow one day. Yes, sitting out there at an outdoor caf, right where you see all those old black-and-white films of the Russians with Stalin and such marching down with their tanks and flags. It was kind of surreal. But when I got there, no one ever really spoke to me or smiled. I put my finger up for one for a table and the guy grabbed a menu, took me over there, put the menu down didn't say a word to me or smile. A few minutes later another guy came over to me and just stared at me and I was trying to talk to him a little bit, this is before the translation apps were really popular. And again he just looked at me and did not smile. He wasn't very old. I could tell that one of the items was a Caesar salad so I pointed to that and then I pointed to some drink that ended up being really weird.
When I was finished eating, I raised my hand. He came over. I did a little signal with the scribble finger on your hand, and he walked back and got the check put it down still had not smiled or spoke to me and then I paid him. It's just a very different experience.
Third story, we had different guides in different cities along the way that would tell you about things and we had a lady that was a Russian guide, but she spoke very clear English. She was telling us about the smiling thing and how people are very untrusting of Americans like you said as well. She said she does tours for American groups, British groups, even some Russian groups. And one time after she had done a tour for a Russian group, her boss called her in and said she had a complaint about her. And this woman was very friendly and very nice. She said one of the wives of one of the men on the last tour said she was acting inappropriately because she kept smiling at her husband. She said that she had just gotten used to being around more Americans and others that enjoy that and just was trying to be friendly. So it's all about what they expect but she said it is true that they don't know why Americans are always smiling. They do think it's very untrustworthy.
I don’t get enough credit for the things I manage not to say.
