As a non-American, this was one of the biggest culture shocks I faced. On the surface, relationships in the US seem very transactional (not making the judgment that they are really transactional). For example, in the US a son would thank his parents for paying his college tuition. In my culture, this would be insulting because it would suggest being distant from family, in the sense that the son ought to believe his parents wealth is his also, and later willingly contribute his earnings when his parents need anything. It is a difference in the degree to which individualism is the norm.
Reminds of the book "Debt" by David Graeber. He talks about how many cultures have systems where everyone is indebted to their family and community, and this debt is never to be settled. To want to settle a debt (or to even calculate it) would indicate that a relationship has ended. So it is a huge culture shock to see the degree to which calculation plays a part in US relationships (like Sheryl Sandberg precisely splitting domestic chores with her husband 50:50).
I have a feeling that the non-American system is better because it fosters closer family ties, but that might just be because that's the system I'm familiar with.
>> In my culture, this would be insulting because it would suggest being distant from family, in the sense that the son ought to believe his parents wealth is his also, and later willingly contribute his earnings when his parents need anything. It is a difference in the degree to which individualism is the norm.
This is very interesting, and brings to mind something I've been struggling with recently (I'm USA-ian by the way). As a father I want to instill in my children a sense of self reliance, a sense that they can go into the world and make their own way, and be successful, without my help. In my world view, that is the best gift I can give them.
I personally come from a background of rural poverty, my parents weren't able to help me at all financially, but growing up working shoulder to shoulder with my father on the (meager) family farm taught me the value of hard work and thrift. Which I think have served me well (I am clearly biased).
So, from that angle, I don't want my children to see my wealth as their wealth, or my success as their success. I would like them to view my success as the result of hard work and perseverance, and an example of what they can achieve, indeed, they can achieve more.
I post this merely as an example of my thought process, which is evolving. I can see how there is value in what you relate here. So thanks to you in a non-distancing sense :)
Hah, you're welcome. This is really interesting because it raises the question: what role does affluence have to play in all of this?
In the case of my country, people usually aren't rich enough to save for retirement, nor are starting salaries high enough for young adults to stake out on their own. So parents help their kids right up to the point they can no longer work, and then kids take over to provide for the family.
In case of you being affluent (as in with a completely well-funded retirement), I can totally see why you'd want your kids to not see your wealth as theirs. It might ruin their incentives to be productive citizens.
So, does affluence naturally lead to a weakening of strong family ties? Dunno.
I think we need to have a better idea what's meant by "family ties". I'm from the US. My teammate on a project is a woman from India. (We're both working in the US.) She doesn't have children, but I have a 9yo daughter. We talk about differences in how my wife and I raise our daughter versus how she was raised. My wife and I follow the trend in the US of being very involved in our daughter's life. We walk her to school, volunteer for her softball and basketball leagues, and play key roles in the PTA. I stepped back my software engineering career so that I can pick her up a few days a week from school and either hang out, setup a play date, or bring her to an activity. (As an aside, because I'm part-time employed now, I assumed more of the household tasks. There seems to be a trend in this direction in the US for men.)
In my teammate's experience, parents in India tend to be more hands off and let their kids develop independence earlier. Parents focus more on career. Grandparents are more involved with caring for the children while parents work. Despite the more hands off approach, my teammate misses her parents greatly and was very sad and worried when her father was ill recently.
The parenting approaches are different, but the ephemeral "family tie" seems to be present in both situations.
Actually, my experience (Indian-American, brought up in the States but currently studying in India), is sort of the opposite.
Americans inculcate a _lot_ more independence than Indians do.
For example, in the US:
- Kids often get jobs and earn their own pocket money at 13+. It's the norm in most places after 16.
- Kids fund their own education
- After 18, there's an expectation in many families that the child will leave and become independent (or at least start paying rent)
- Kids generally make their own life decisions
- This reverses in old age; "old people's homes" are common in the US. After retirement, parents stay separate, and if they're unable to take care of themselves will often move into one of these. Nuclear families are common
In India:
- Middle class kids will not earn until 18, mostly not until after college. When they do earn it's something you can brag about. Definitely not the norm.
- Education is funded by parents. I earned a lot of money last year (I'm a college student). When my friends asked me what I intended to do with it, I got quizzical looks when I said that I was repaying my education. (Higher ed isn't particularly expensive here, but it's not cheap either, and I sort of wanted to start being more independent)
- It is perfectly fine to stay home till ... forever.
- Life decisions are made by the family, sometimes. Marriage is an example of this (though arguably there's a lot of legacy cultural reasons behind that). But career choices are too. A ton of the folks in my college are there because their family wanted them to study engineering.
- Kids take care of their parents as they get older. Extended families are common.
YMMV, of course, but this is commonly how things go from talking with my peers in both countries. Perhaps what you're noticing is a difference in generations, not in countries. Parents are universally more involved in the minutae of their children's lives than they used to be in the past.
I'm about to have a kid (wife is 8 months pregnant) so I've been thinking about this some. Unfortunately though, a lot of this is culture and individual parents can't necessarily do a lot. It doesn't matter if I'd rather my kid play in a pick-up game instead of an organized league if all the other kids in the neighborhood are only in leagues.
Just some advice, don't worry about organized league vs. street play so much. I played organized hockey year-round (up to 3 teams at a time) and still had plenty of time for unorganized play with neighborhood kids. I grew up in an urban, relatively population-dense neighborhood. Within 2 blocks, there were at least 30 kids within 3 years of my age. Your child's chance to do unorganized activity depends mostly on the number of kids close to his/her age within shouting distance.
The biggest drain on your child's free time is going to be school. Our culture is scared right now about falling behind the rest of the developed world in cognitive skills necessary for the future job market. The knee-jerk reaction is to work harder. The result is that more homework gets assigned, more testing takes place, and some groups are calling for longer school days and less vacation time.
You're a parent now. Educate yourself on child development and Education reform. Then get yourself involved politically so you can be your child's advocate.
That is an interesting article but I don't think they do it any better in India. In India there is even more emphasis on memorizing things. In India academics are probably over emphasized.
I really have no idea. Was just responding to the parent comment which said: "In my teammate's experience, parents in India tend to be more hands off and let their kids develop independence earlier."
> So, does affluence naturally lead to a weakening of strong family ties?
IMO, what you call strong family ties, others might call patriarchy. When women have improved ability to support themselves, they're more inclined to leave abusive relationships. And like Sandberg, they're less willing to accept menial household roles traditionally assigned to them. There's a podcast from Planet Money about how this plays out among textile workers, if I recall correctly.
> IMO, what you call strong family ties, others might call patriarchy.
They are often correlated and found in similar cultural sources, but they are distinct elements. The US idealization of the nuclear rather than extended family and corresponding weaker family ties didn't (and still often doesn't) come with the breaking of patriarchy -- in fact, it is rooted in a time when patriarchy was quite strong -- though you sometimes (especially now) find non-patriarchal arrangements along with it.
Strong family ties and non-transactional view of family interactions doesn't have any essential tie to patriarchy, nor do weak family ties and a transaction approach to interactions have any essential tie to the absence of patriarchy.
These views both have value, and both can be overplayed.
Hopefully you can also instill in your children an understanding that there is always some luck involved also, and help them avoid that pernicious failure to understand that because someone is not successful does not mean you can conclude they just have not worked hard enough.
> This is very interesting, and brings to mind something I've been struggling with recently (I'm USA-ian by the way). As a father I want to instill in my children a sense of self reliance, a sense that they can go into the world and make their own way, and be successful, without my help. In my world view, that is the best gift I can give them.
Me too. I have spent more than 1/2 my life in the US, though I have one Indian parent and one parent from a culture where families have, for lack of a better term, "collective success" (as you put it well, "my wealth as their wealth, or my success as their success.")
But I moved out at 16 and feel that my life now, decades later, is the life _I_ made. And my son is perfectly happy knowing that he won't inherit a penny (I find even the concept of "estate planning" grotesque and anti-republican).
None of this should imply I am any sort of Randian libertarian. I was incredibly lucky to be born in a wealthy country not at war, to have been able to go through a excellent school systems, and to have had a stable family and to have spent most of my working life in western democracies. It certainly has bred an orientation to be of benefit to society and to support my own child to be self reliant and also to be, I hope, a net contributor to society as well.
But the atavistic desire to emphasize obligations within a family is to me a sign of a weakness in a society.
> I don't want my children to see my wealth as their wealth, or my success as their success
I think that's a good view. I had Chinese immigrant parents who did pretty well financially. They used money as a means of control: they gave me an extremely meager allowance but said if I ever wanted something, I should just ask. Meaning I could have it only if they also approved of it. This resulted in me getting jobs as soon as possible.
So, from that angle, I don't want my children to see my wealth as their wealth, or my success as their success. I would like them to view my success as the result of hard work and perseverance, and an example of what they can achieve, indeed, they can achieve more.
I advise to look out for the opposite perspective or angle to this that it might be viewed as a form of abuse, unnecessary harshness or worse meagerness.
Teaching your kids survival skills esp. males and how to be strong in life is very crucial and "tough love" can sometimes yield good results but you don't wanna to break the bond or the good relationship you have between you and your kids in the process.
It is all about their wellbeing and fostering and nurturing this relationship after all, isn't it or am I mistaken?
I think there is a fine line between the two. When you look at upper-class society, you realize that giving your child everything can cause them to become spoiled without any perspective of the value of a dollar. If the money should dry up, they'll likely hit the ground hard. On the other end of the spectrum, you start to tip-toe into the, "I had to work 12 hour days. Why can't you do it?" territory.
The balance comes when showing them that food doesn't magically appear on the table while still acknowledging that life can still kick you in the rear in spite of you doing everything right. It's telling them that it's time for them to make their own way, but it's also putting out the crash mat when they're free falling.
I think there is a clear balance that can be struck with saying "This is what I have created and I share it with you out of love" and "What I created is yours by virtue of being my child". I think the results he seeks can be achieved without wandering into "tough love" realms. In fact, I assume he means it more in that sense.
My children have thanked me for giving them that strength and individualism. For allowing them to not having it all handed to them. I practiced similar to the parent and my relationship with my children is rock solid.
You may be reading a lot of value into this distinction. To me, as an American, equality in a peer relationship is important but bookkeeping and debt is destructive. The 50:50 split is just an ongoing division of labor, it is explicitly NOT debt because it never accumulates. Any "thank you" is an acknowledgment of gratitude or merely a polite exit to a conversation one doesn't want to continue. The debt that children have to their parents is to be paid to the next generation.
It's another one of those cultural quirks that seems more telling than it actually is. For example, because Russians don't smile to strangers, they're cold and unfriendly. Or because Americans do smile to strangers, we're untrustworthy and insincere.
The reason we think it's so big is because we're translating the literal contents (smile, "thank you") but ending up with a completely different meaning or set of pragmatics. and then we miss the ability to use set phrases in our native language. Just like you can say "pleased to meet you" in Enhlish, but you can't say "よろしくお願いします".
Edit: to clarify, cultures are different and language reflects that, but I think a lot of set phrases reflect history more than they reflect living culture.
Upthread someone mentions Graeber's _Debt_ book. You might find it interesting. It has a whole discussion on exactly these set of phrases. They were not always with us, and it's interesting to see when and why they came into common usage. In a large part it was out of the need to have economic transactions with strangers, and the need to not be tied up so tightly with our families.
What if that system also fosters corruption and nepotism? Need to hire somebody for a job? family first (you owe them remember?), tender a contract (family first) the list goes on. You are a public servant, someone comes to your office to get you to do the job that you were hired to do, but they're not your family, you don't owe them anything... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_India
Yeah that system is better because it fosters closer family ties.
And the opposite does not? It makes calling in the debt owed much more discrete, which means the corruption is more conscious, but the transactional nature would foster corruption among those who are of higher power instead of those who are family.
In the culture grandparent comment describe, if someone comes into my office, any favoritism will be based on their being close to my family.
In a culture without that, if someone comes into my office, any favoritism will be based on their ability to offer me favoritism.
If anything, our system is worse because favoritism among the powerful is a worse problem that favoritism among families and friends.
>In a culture without that, if someone comes into my office, any favoritism will be based on their ability to offer me favoritism
So your first point is: one hand washes the other. I will show favoritism to people who can be of some benefit to me. Sounds like merit based favoritism. So for example could I show favoritism to a guy that works really hard? Is that corruption? Or I show favoritism to a guy who can invest in my company because his family has money? Is that corruption? (probably more so than the first example but I'm not sure).
The second point favoritism among the powerful is worse than the familial sort, because of your first point.
If anything it seems that the opposite is true because according to your logic the favoritism here is more merit based.
What if that system also fosters corruption and nepotism?
It actually does. Just look at the well known public companies in India (Reliance, Infosys, Wipro and many others). You will always see the son or some other relative of the chairman/CEO directly gets hired as a VP or a director.
> That day, I made the mistake of telling him, in English, “Thank you for inviting me” before leaving his house, realizing the import of my words only after they had left my mouth. He didn’t respond, but I saw his expression turn sour. He was filled with disgust. I couldn’t even apologize for thanking him. The damage was done.
So of course, implicit debt and duty is great because of the closer ties. On the other hand, you run into the risk of hurting people and breaking those ties quite easily by simply talking about it.
That's not a scenario that would happen by mistake in ordinary condition, only when foreign influence is put into the mix. In a multi-cultural context, the American way seems a bit more robust to mistake.
My wife is American and I'm Bangladeshi, and we definitely see the differences you're talking about in our relationships with our families. Especially because we have crazy work/commute schedules and also a toddler, so we end up leaning heavily on our mothers for childcare.
I don't think I agree with your conclusion about "closer family ties." My mother in law is definitely very transactional, while my mother isn't, but my mother will also build up resentment when we exceed her unstated boundaries that will manifest into a fight months later.
Obviously a lot of that is just the particular personalities involved, but I would not be surprised if there was a general tendency for Americans to negotiate more up-front to avoid conflict later.
I think the cultural difference comes particularly to a head in the Sheryl Sandberg example. Let's face it--the typical Indian/Bangladeshi solution to negotiating chores 50:50 with your spouse is for the woman to do much more of the domestic work and sacrifice her career for her husband's. That's common everywhere, of course, but I think it's a particularly difficult problem to solve if you look down on calculating inter-spousal debt.
> I have a feeling that the non-American system is better because it fosters closer family ties, but that might just be because that's the system I'm familiar with.
Fostering closer family ties has good sides and bad sides.
Individuals from a toxic family background benefit from being able to keep their family at arm's length or farther, which isn't as acceptable in cultures that so strongly and universally emphasize family loyalty. Not all parents are good parents!
I think this is an interesting idea. Cultures are often categorized as "individualistic" or "shame-based"...but I wonder if "debt-based" might be a good descriptor for many cultures.
There's definitely a range of individualism in the U.S. as well, some people take it to a kind of local maximum, some people just try to find workable balances. When my wife first immigrated here from South Korea, she struggled to characterize "America" in simple, digestible differences so that she could work within the society. No a couple decades later, she's developed a more nuanced view, and understands that it's very hard to say "Americans do x" without going into a higher level of abstraction like "some Americans do x" when explaining something to her friends.
Better? That depends on what socioeconomic sphere you're in. This kind of familial dependency protects entrenched interests. If you don't care about upward mobility and social progress, it may suit you.
It has produced some interesting outcomes over history:
Historically, the fate of family members in Russia was deeply intertwined. With this government-sponsored arrangement, family members of "revolutionaries" would be punished. This was an effective device of the tsars for a long time. Eventually, though, they enforced familial punishment with the wrong family and created a formidable adversary -- V.I. Lenin. Creating Lenin The Revolutionary in a deeply disgruntled society was the tipping point.
On some level there's a tradeoff between individual autonomy and social interdependence, and different cultures fall at different places on the continuum between them.
Clearly the U.S. is at one extreme. But I don't know that one is "better": there are different benefits and costs. In the U.S. people have huge amounts of personal freedom and autonomy, but are more likely to live thousands of miles away from their friends and family, and struggle with loneliness. But there are different costs when you erode individual autonomy.
That was implicit model I used growing up, until learned people use "thank you" differently. I was reluctant to thank anyone for doing what I thought was already their obligation -- it didn't make sense. And likewise, I would be confused at receiving thanks for what I thought was my job.
(Naturally, in either case, it would make sense if the thanked did something that went above-and-beyond.)
My in-laws are from a culture that is one of the heaviest in terms of familial obligation. Parental or elder sibling authority is strictly observed. Once they relocated to the US, it only took a few years for them to realize they could tell their ornery older relatives to fuck off and not become social pariahs. They love America and want their kids to totally free of dependence on them.
Perhaps he doesn't understand that "thank you" is usually meant as a simple, polite acknowledgement. A heartfelt expression of gratitude in English is said not with a stock phrase, but by stopping, looking at the person, and explaining your gratitude to them.
He is confusing our stock phrase with something that is an entirely different concept.
If I may extend my own post for a moment, this is a common problem of trying to translate words & phrases directly.
For example, most people know that "Arigato" is Japanese for "Thank you". Except that's really wrong. Arigato is inappropriate in most cases, and "Sumasen" or variations should be used. But if you tried to translate them via the dictionary, you'd be quite confused as arigato comes from "thank" and su(mi)masen from "to finish".
You can't just say "This equals this" when you work in another language or culture. You have to learn the native meaning itself.
Arigatou - "Thank you"
Sumimasen - "Excuse me" or a milder version of "sorry"
Gomennasai - "Sorry"
If I help my Japanese roommate grab some stuff from the convenience store, he says arigatou. If he wants to really be polite he could add on "suman, meiwaku kaketa." (sorry for troubling you)
I'm not arguing against the fact that we shouldn't do literal translations between cultures, but more that you're giving misleading ideas on Japanese language.
If someone holds the door for you, or brings you a napkin, you can pretty much just say "arigatou". They will most probably just reply, "iie".
Source: JLPT N1 and member of a Japanese Teamspeak game clan for 7 years now.
My "source" is 13 years in Japan living with Japanese wife, children & extended family :-)
But I'm not going to argue - for example, it may just be that here in Kansai we use them differently. We would definitely say "sumasen" for the things you listed. Just shows how hard it is to get this down from textbooks.
Hmm it is true that I have only hung out with mostly people from kantou. Thanks for the new knowledge, will go look into it. :D
[Edit]
Just checked with the friends. It seems like it really depends on the social habits. If a bunch of people started with gomen, then that word will stick, even if it feels weird.
For me, because I started with "arigatou" with them, so my friends naturally used "arigatou" around me instead. However, whether they use "arigatou" or "sumimasen" really depends on their family habits. Currently it's split 30(arigatou)-70(sumimasen) amongst them. Much nuance is learnt today.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the less formal Kansai local term:
"oh-KIni" おおきに:
It is also used as "Thank you" in casual situations, but my understanding is that it is literally "Excuse me".
So much of proper speech is dependent on who you are with and their preferred idom. Of course formality in the case of uncertainty is usually preferred, but that can lead to both humor and embarrassment.
大きに (おおきに) is interestingly an abbreviated form of... 大きにありがとう (ookini arigatou), in which 大きに just means the same as とても (totemo), so "very". The equivalent in english would be to say "very much" instead of "Thank you very much".
Wait a minute, sumimasen only means thank-you when it's a thanks plus a kind of apology for making someone go to some trouble. Some version of doumo arigato gozaimasu is really fine in most other situations!
EDIT: after reading the post above, I'd like to add that there may even be regional differences with all of this, so let me state this is based on my own experience.
No, not really IMHO - much more complicated. The first article (I only skimmed) seemed pretty good, the second was prolly a Japanese person trying to codify it :-) Here's a foreigner's attempt to explain them, based on how I use them (and I'm focusing on "thank you", not all the other meanings):
"su(mi)masen" means literally "it isn't finished" - meaning, I feel the need to repay you. "Arigato" is more literally "thank you", but is more of a "ending, cutting off" feeling. Neither is more polite than the other, just used in different circumstances. Which makes it terribly nuanced.
On the street, in the shops, normal life: "sumasen", which ends up being a lot like "thanks" that we are originally discussing. Why not "arigato"? I think because it would sound really abrupt, cut off ("curt" often used in literature).
Family member passes the salt - "arigato". No need to make a fuss, just a "thanks"
Someone close to the family has given you a gift, done something special: "Arigato gozaimasu!" (with 20 or more little sumasens thrown in) - I couldn't possibly return such a special effort (even though I'll deliver a returning gift to your house tomorrow) so it would be insulting to imply I'm going to.
You get the idea of how nuanced and confusing it can be. You just have to learn it naturally, I think.
Yes, it is interesting how regional it is! I lived in Tokyo and in the north, and sumimasen (or suimasen) was basically just used for sorry-thanks (along with all the other excuse-me type situations). Also doumo was the least formal way of saying thanks, not arigato, unless there was some other way of demonstrating appreciation in which case it might be skipped altogether. Some of the people I was with would say sugoi about every 10 seconds and if you did something deserving a doumo you might get a sugoi instead. I wouldn't say doumo in a shop unless I knew the people, and I wouldn't say arigato much with people I was close to. I certainly wouldn't use arigato much at dinner, let alone doumo; with friends it was close to saying "I'm grateful" in English which you only really say if it's at least somewhat important.
Sumasen is likely regional. I've never heard it said, but it has the same root as sumimasen. In spoken "standard" japanese, you'll hear "sumimasen" or "suimasen", which is a common deformation because it's easier to pronounce. And indeed, its root is "to finish something" (済む), while its meaning is large, including "Sorry" and "Thank you" in english.
Arigatou, literally, means "difficult to be/have" (有り難う (arigatou) is an euphonic change (onbin/音便) of 有り難い (arigatai; ari/aru: be/have...; ~gatai: difficult), which translated like this is just completely weird, but so is literal translation.
Arigatou is fine in many more cases than you claim it to be, but yes, Sumimasen can be appropriate in many cases where you would say "Thank you" in english.
As an English speaker, I agree with others above that this article misses a huge point about our language.
Yes we use thank you a lot, even for some things people may consider 'trite'. I'm from the UK so I use it a HELL of a lot.
But I want to call out 2 points based on this:
1. As mentioned above, just thanking someone can turn their day around, and most times I feel rude if I do not say it (that is my cultural upbringing).
2. For me/the English culture, it is a multi-faceted word. It can be used in everyday scenarios, or it can be used in deeply emotional ones.
The article doesn't seem to acknowledge this, so perhaps the OP hasn't truly grasped the intricacies of the language.
As an aside, I did find the information about the attitude towards 'thanks' in Hindi really interesting. Thanks!*
I have also heard discussions on the rise of the double thank-you in American English. For a long while, the acknowledgement response to a "thank you" was "you're welcome". But during the last century, it has become more common to respond to a "thank you" with a "thank you".
Usually, in a retail setting, this isn't exactly an even exchange. The business says to the customer "thank you [for your business]" and the customer says to the actual person wearing the employee mantle "thank you [for serving me]". One does not thank an ATM or vending machine, but it is appropriate to thank a human bank teller or retail clerk. We know that the employee has no personal reason to thank us for our business, and we also know that the cash we pay at the register is thanks enough for the corporate body. So we thank the person in front of us.
Implicit in all those little, minor thanks is the acknowledgement that the recipient has the capacity to appreciate gratitude, however minor it may be, and may not get it as often as it is deserved.
This is slightly related to the peer-to-peer double thank you. In that case, each party is thanking the other for their participation in a transaction that yields a mutual benefit. A talk-show host thanks an interviewee for filling airtime on the program, and the guest thanks the host for the use of their distribution platform, or perhaps for the opportunity to show off their temporary fame to their friends. A person selling his car thanks the buyer for trading up from used car to cash, and the buyer thanks the seller for trading up from cash to used car.
This has become so prevalent that saying "you're welcome" in response to a "thank you" now implies that the act was altruistic, which may make those averse to bragging slightly uncomfortable. That would result in a more deprecating acknowledgement, such as "it wasn't any trouble" or "no problem" or "I'm just happy to help".
It seems that the article is saying that in India, a "thank you" is more akin to "this concludes our business for today; please send me your invoice, so that I may settle our accounts". That does not translate to the typical American use of "thank you". It does also translate to that, sometimes, but those uses are marked by intonation and context.
Ever use an ATM with voice prompts? It's hard not to talk back to a machine that's talking to you.
It seems to me that the service-oriented "thank you" is more about expressing satisfaction than gratitude. It's a way of communicating that you have no complaints about the service without suggesting that there could have been anything to complain about. When a person doesn't say "thank you" it implies they were unhappy with the transaction and that they may be less likely to want to do business with you again.
> "That's what I understand if I see "Thanks" instead of "Many thanks!""
That probably says more about you, or the particular dialect of your region, than him. "Many thanks" is not the predominate phrase for expressing thanks anywhere in that I have been in the continental US.
"Thanks" is only passive aggressive when in a context that makes that clear. It is most often used sincerely. That word alone is never "the tell" for insincerity; something else about the situation is.
I say thank you often, and every single time it's because I feel gratitude. This guy is doing it wrong.
> After moving to America, it took me several years to say thanks to people without actually meaning it. Putting “thank you” on the tip of my tongue, ready to escape at a moment’s notice, rather than extracting it from the depths of my heart, was one of the hardest language lessons I had to learn in the United States.
I completely agree. I was raised to say "please" and "thank you", not because it's makes me look good, but because it's showing appreciation, gratitude and empathy for the other person's work on your behalf. Politeness is about empathy, not self-aggrandizing.
I've been told more than once that just being polite to a cashier or a waiter has turned bad days they were having around. Treating other people decently is its own reward.
> You feel gratitude when you receive change from the shop clerk and say "thanks, bye"?
I know that many people are saying this robotically, but I personally feel genuinely grateful that the shop clerk has chosen to do this, and that they typically do a good job - providing me with a good level of service that greatly benefits me.
I recognise that it is not a fun job and that clerks often have to suffer poor conditions and that if I had to do that job, I would be mind-numbed with boredom.
So, I look the shop clerk in the eye and give my thanks fully and properly. It's obvious that it's appreciated and it's obvious that few other people are taking any time to genuinely thank shop clerks.
> Not around here, it isn't. I tried that three times, giving up after getting a mix of disinterest and hostility.
Someone physically and/or verbally attacked you for thanking them? That's the only negative outcome that I can imagine, and what I'm reading when you say "hostility."
Lack of interest seems a typical result - are you expecting to be thanked for thanking people? Theoretically, that forms a chain never ends. I thank everyone for everything that they do for me; sometimes they reply with "you're welcome", sometimes our 'thank-you's collide because while I'm thanking them for their service, they're thanking me for my patronage, sometimes I get a smile, often I get no indication that I've said anything.
None of those are failures, because the goal was for me to thank people, not to be praised for thanking people.
Let me make myself clear, I always thank people. What I did those days was to be mindful and sincere instead of thanking in auto-pilot.
Someone physically and/or verbally attacked you for thanking them? That's the only negative outcome that I can imagine, and what I'm reading when you say "hostility."
Attack seems too strong, but an hostile tone, yes. More than once.
My goal wasn't to be praised, but I did have a goal of actually causing a positive effect on others; I have no interest in "good deeds" that help no one except the performer to feel proud about himself.
Considering that all signs indicated I was actually bothering people, I stopped, as I think anyone should.
While I show you respect for your effort, you could try it 3 times per day. If you feel genuinely grateful, I recommend that you try more.
Some people don't appreciate it; some people think you are being ungenuine; some people don't notice or care; some people find it uncomfortable that you're choosing to break the social code; some people are confused by that. Yes, you're right.
So what? Are you giving thanks because you want a service worker to validate you, or because you are grateful to the other person and you want to show your appreciation?
I interact with many store clerks more than once and, on the second occasion, I want them to know clearly that I wasn't pretending when I gave thanks the first time. A majority appreciate it.
So what? Are you giving thanks because you want a service worker to validate you, or because you are grateful to the other person?
Neither, if I give thanks it's to improve the other person's day. Giving thanks just because I'm grateful, regardless if the other person will appreciate or be annoyed, is just being selfish - making myself feel more virtuous without actually improving anyone's life.
I interact with many store clerks more than once
Ah, yes, I also have a friendly relationship with a couple of people, like the corner store owner, and I thank them habitually. I was speaking about people I only interact with once or rarely.
My first job was selling cokes at football games when I was 12. One dollar for each tray I sold, and I'd carry it to the top of the stands. Yeah I'm grateful when someone serves me.
Not OP but I feel gratitude towards them when they're able to do the math quickly, act like they have a purpose at work and smile or make eye contact at some point. Plenty of cashiers don't pass this bar and don't get a "thank you."
I appreciate a friendly and frictionless transaction /because/ it fails to happen so often.
As an American, I've sometimes been bothered by the use of thank you. It is fine as a pleasantry at a restaurant. But it always felt odd coming from a boss or from the company CEO. I think to myself, "I didn't do this piece of work as a favor to you, I didn't because you are paying me and you told me to do it." It is interesting to read that this view is more common in other cultures. I also dislike putting "thank you" in an email, before they have agreed to do the favor or task. It feels very presumptuous. Am I crazy or do other people feel the same way.
> a modern boss is tolerant, he behaves like a colleague of ours, sharing dirty jokes, inviting us for a drink, openly displaying his weaknesses, admitting that he is “merely human like us”. He is deeply offended if we remind him that he is our boss – however, it is this very rejection of explicit authority that guarantees his de facto power.
> This is why the first gesture of liberation is to force the master to act as one: our only defence is to reject his “warm human” approach and to insist that he should treat us with cold distance. We live in weird times in which we are compelled to behave as if we are free, so that the unsayable is not our freedom but the very fact of our servitude.
I had a manager who made a practice of thanking people when they did things he had asked them to. I hadn't seen it done that assiduously before, and I rather got to like it. I try to do the same now, when appropriate.
I agree, though, that pre-thanking someone before they've done what you ask is presumptuous.
Thanking is not used to acknowledge a favor, thanking expresses gratitude. It means your boss appreciates your effort, that he doesn't consider you a robot who does work solely for the money. Maybe he thinks you put a little bit of yourself into the work.
Imagine the distance thanking someone for sex would put between you. Like the scenario you gave, it implies the other person was doing you a favor- which also implies the act wasn't totally genuine.
I grew up in North America. But I rarely thank anyone. I think I've thanked people in a work setting maybe twice in my entire career- and only because the other party was doing me a favour.
It's nice to find a higher purpose in your work. If you are paid $10 and work worth $15, you're giving of yourself for others. Work is such a big part of life, it is good to go the extra mile and serve others while you're there. Sure, you're paid for it, but your motivation can become "I'm doing this because I want my boss and the customer to have a better life."
> I also dislike putting "thank you" in an email, before they have agreed to do the favor or task. It feels very presumptuous.
You're thanking someone for taking the time to read your email, not for completing some other task. You can say "thank you for your time" or "thank you for your consideration" if that makes more sense.
The single best compliment I had from a senior manager after emailing the findings of quite an arduous 2-month project early in my career was a one word email:
"Good."
Put me on cloud nine.
I think it depends on who's doing the talking. Saying thanks more bring inflation to the term, leading to making up more terms when we really mean thanks.
I live in the UK, and whenever I travel back to Bulgaria, I get told off for saying "sorry" and "thank you" all the time.
In Bulgarian, the word for "thank you" is "благодаря" ("blagodarya") but people often fall back to a simple "мерси" ("merci" - the French word, yes) for transactional thank-yous.
I'm not really sure whether that's because "благодаря" is reserved for sincere, heartfelt thanksgiving or because the word is just too long to say very often.
In Polish before 90s the French "pardon" was used for casual "I'm sorry" (for example when you bump into someone) as opposed to native (and more intense) "przepraszam" used when you really mean it.
Since 90s (and all the American movies) most people switched to English "sorry" instead of the French "pardon" for casual "I'm sorry". The original "przepraszam" is still mostly used for more meaningful apologies. And "pardon" is still there if you want to sound old-style casual.
And yes, part of it is - "przepraszam" is longer and sounds more "dignified". The thinking goes "if you're really sorry you should work for it".
Funny thing happened to me when I came back to Poland from prolong stay in Italy.
Italy seemed a lot denser to me so I bumped into people a lot. I quickly got habituated to say "scusi" which is Italian quick apology.
There isn't really good formal quick apology in Poland. Pardon or sorry sounds disrespectful if you are apologizing to older person. You need to go with full "przepraszam".
As a Pole you probably know where I'm going with all this...
When I came back to Poland and bumped into older lady in the shop I quickly said "sku..!...przepraszam"
In polish "sku.." is how some of the expletives start.
I think it's mostly because it's so long and somewhat convoluted. "Благодаря" has 4 syllables while "мерси" only has 2. It's similar to saying "thanks" instead of "thank you" but that comparison is lost because the two words in Bulgarian are so different.
I think it's important to point out that India is very culturally diverse. I have lived in Mumbai for 22 years, and Canada for 8 years. I have said "thank you" to people all my life. I do it consciously and sincerely - cashiers, rickshaw drivers, waiters, friends, peers, everybody. I don't think I've ever offended anybody - at least not that I know of.
With regard to family - neither of my parents' respective families are overtly religious, and neither of them have Hindu or Muslim ancestries. We say thank you to one another all the time. In fact, I can't relate to what the author is saying at all! In the spirit of sharing/learning about new cultures, here's hoping that the 7% of us (7 million people) aren't painted with this broad brush.
I read that article and kept thinking it didn't sound like my family or friends at all. We are Pakistanis & Indians, American born, immigrants, and some back in motherland. Almost everyone I know from Indian/Pakistani culture always says "thank you".
So yes it must be cultural difference in certain part of India, it certainly doesn't represent the most of Indians I know.
Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and "Others" - since my cultural background is a combination of some of those, I'm fairly confident that the author's perspective does not reflect my community, and likely some of the other minority communities, of which India has 7 million people.
I grew up in North India and I was taught to say thank you to friends and even to family members e.g., say thank you after being offered snacks (what would be called hors d'oeuvres in the west), offered a chapati or additional daal or sabji during meals, etc.
I did not say thank you to bus or cab drivers, but often did say thank you to shopkeepers.
Yes - just to clarify, my intent was to merely hypothesize at the idea that perhaps people ought to proceed with caution whenever some sort of behavior is categorized/stereotyped as "Indian", since in the case of India, even a minority is a very significant number of people.
When I was an English teacher in China, I noticed something similar. Saying "thank you" to friends I made there resulted in a look of confusion, being taken aback, and not quite knowing how to respond. Over time I noticed a pattern and concluded that the interpretation was that friends shouldn't need to say thanks to each other, and saying it turned interaction into something more formal and less friendly.
Something I haven't seen anyone bring up is the way that "thank you" or "sorry" are delivered.
I'm not familiar enough with other languages to know if they have similar variances in speech, but in english you can very much change the meaning of your message with the tone of your voice or your rate of speech.
Nearly any phrase can come off as condescending given the right delivery.
I've spoken English since childhood and I've still gotten it wrong. So awkward. "No, wait, that sounded sarcastic. I really meant it! Ok, that didn't sound any better. Let me start over."
Taught this kind of stuff in India for a while for a company providing phone support. It's not just "thank you", it's also "please" and "sorry" - both are considered rude/inappropriate outside of certain settings. There's a huge difference in etiquette that is a cause of frustration on phone calls (particularly for support). Both sides are (usually) trying to be polite, but perceive the other side as being very rude. This is one of the main reasons (of about a half a dozen) that cause support calls to go sour.
Come to think of it, in India I have almost never really "thanked" many among my family, but have done it for almost everybody else, and often I have found a compliment works in places where a thanks might seem too formal. Saying "I had an amazing time at your place and will miss the food" carries the sense of gratitude without the sense of formality in India.
Although not as extreme as in this example, the American custom of saying "thank you" and "please" all the time is considered excessive to the point of being insultingly trite by many cultures.
And I regularly hear Americans complain about people from other cultures being impolite because they don't say "thank you" or "please" all the time.
AFAIK in most cultures these kind of phrases are generally more formal and tend to signal a certain distance that in the wrong context can be interpreted as condescending.
In America we are conditioned with a moral duty to be appreciative for what we have and how fortunate we are. It probably stems from the religious nature of some of the early colonies, which religion was Calvinist in nature and big on divine providence, and how it is only by the whim of God that you have a roof over your head, food on the table, a supportive family, etc. We set aside an entire day -- Thanksgiving -- for expressing gratitude and in practical terms that's stretched over a four-day weekend.
In Greece, saying "please" can sound condescending. You pretty much want to avoid saying please, and politeness comes from the phrasing. "Can you bring me a glass of water" is the polite version of "bring me a glass of water", although the latter is also usually made polite by adding "re" (to friends) or adding "a bit" ("bring me a glass of water for a bit", it doesn't translate well).
Saying "please" to anyone you're even slightly familiar with would be at least weird, and in many cases condescending and offputting.
"Thanks" is somewhere between the US and India, where you don't thank everyone all the time, but do thank people who've done you a favor, or in service settings, people who have been good to you (good servers/shopkeepers/etc).
In spain we have a mix of both; although it is very normal to say it formulaically to e.g. a shop clerk, we are also very often very direct and don't use it, just using tone or phrasing - and foreigners (including spanish-speaking ones) are usually shocked by how rude we seem to be.
I've found that Greek translates pretty much exactly to Spanish (culturally and linguistically), so I just say "puedes traerme <x>" or, at most, "quisiera un <x>".
Over here in Germany we even had an optional 'Cultural differences' workshop you could participate in, which discussed things - both for Germans and for people from the US, the presenter was from the US - that might seem awkward at first.
The ~social fillwords~ were on the list. Lots of thank you / you're welcome plus the really irritating 'How are you?' variations.
Wouldn't you find these differences between any culture though? Is Hindi/Indian vs. English/US especially surprising?
> Lots of ... irritating 'How are you?' variations.
Pity that. I frequently ask people "how are you" at the beginning of a conversation, and it's very often ignored on the assumption that i'm using a formula, but i am usually genuinely curious ask to what's up, trying to get them to say something about themselves since the last time we spoke. Pity this idiom has suffered inflation, perhaps i should think of another to replace it.
I hate it when people ask "how are you." Because I don't want to drop whatever I'm thinking about and start thinking about what you've asked, which is something that doesn't require any urgent attention.
It's like asking someone to retie their shoes every time you talk to them. So you'll get "I'm fine" because the question is meant to be dismissed quickly, not dwelled upon.
“Thank you for coming to my home” actually meant, “It’s time for you to get out of my house.”
Seriously? Find new friends. When I thank people after hosting an event I do mean to thank them for choosing to spend their time with me. I feel like this post is blently dishonest and caricaturing just to tell a nice story.
I think you're reading a bit too much into that. If you're at a social event, when do you hear "Thank you so much for coming" from the host? Usually when you're leaving, or as the writer says, when it's time for you to leave.
There's a similar problem with my native language[1] and "sorry". The standard word, samaavenna literally means "forgive me". As a former British Colony (Sri Lanka) most of us have got used to the English words -- even non-English speakers will automatically say "sorry" or "thank you".
But once "thank you" is said, most people awkwardly respond with "ah", because there's no phrase in the language for "you're welcome".
Come to think of it, we don't even have a universal second person (a "you"). You need to know the social standing of the person before you can address him/her!
> But once "thank you" is said, most people awkwardly respond with "ah", because there's no phrase in the language for "you're welcome".
This reminds me of my neighbour’s doormat (in Germany). As most doormats, it has a text on it - usually that’s something like "Willkommen" (Welcome) or somesuch. This particular doormat says "You’re welcome!", continuously irritating my English-native friend when walking past it.
>But once "thank you" is said, most people awkwardly respond with "ah", because there's no phrase in the language for "you're welcome".
In London I've noticed that instead of saying, "you're welcome" people prefer to say "no worries", which is far more casual. I don't know why that phrase started to be used but if I had to give a guess I'd say that it was out of awkwardness because there wasn't a less formal/personal response to use.
As an Australian I can say that "no worries" is very common here (ocker). It has a bit of an ambiguous meaning as it implies that the person saying thank you didn't really need to, but at the same time it is a means of acknowledging that you recognise and appreciate the thank you.
India is a more hierarchical society in general, and one doesn't feel the need to thank the servile class for services rendered. Outside family and close circle of friends, a "thank you" can lubricate social interactions.
In the military you will often hear "Don't thank me. The government thanks me twice a month." So there are parts of american culture where these pleasantries are less common.
I think the standard was to be paid on the 1st and the 15th, but you could opt for one monthly pay check if you had trouble saving for rent with the twice a month schedule.
I never really thought about it. Are weekly or monthly that much more common?
Here in Portugal, almost everyone I know is paid monthly. Even the person who comes to my house weekly to clean asks to be paid once a month.
The only people I can think of who have a non-monthly regular pay schedule (not paid per job like freelancers) are door-to-door salespeople and mail ads deliverers.
From the Bureau link I posted above: "Biweekly is the most common length of pay period, with 36.5 percent of U.S. private businesses paying their employees every 2 weeks."
It seems the difference between biweekly (using this definition) and bimonthly is that occasionally you might get paid three times in a month, since the weeks don't align with the months.
Certainly in Norway and Sweden I've never even heard of anybody being paid on any other schedule than once a month (normally on the 25th). Until right now it never really crossed my mind that people with 'regular' jobs would get paid any other way.
It's common to get your first paycheck ~6 weeks after starting a job, and then always one month in arrears.
I've noticed that employers like to offer bridging "loans" to appear kind and generous, but then this identifies cash-poor employees who are set up for unfair treatment later.
Your employer is struggling to make payroll and can't pay you? You won't find out until you've worked out the whole month.
This situation is not right.
I'm surprised to learn that the US has more a employee-friendly practice in this sense.
Semi-monthly paydays for people on salary are pretty common. I have, in fact, never worked at a job that doesn't pay according to that schedule (in Canada).
This is not specific to Hindi speaking people. Even here in South India, Saying you Thank you is usually considered an insult as mentioned in the article.
This is partly in line with my experiences. It's more subtle than it comes across in the article. I've thanked servers, taxi drivers, and others, but don't recall thanking a bus driver.
I have thanked my parents and they've never had issues. However, in general thanking elders is considered bad form, but asking them or appreciating their blessing isn't. Is that very different?
Yeah it might just be a habit, but I say thank-you to heaps of 'service' workers - just a simple 'Thanks mate' when I get off the bus, or get my coffee, etc. Why wouldn't you? I mean, I know it's their job, but you can still be polite about it.
He mentions that historically, cultures tried to keep people indebted to each other, and not settle the debt as is in fashion now. The reason was to keep people doing favors to each other.
It is not exactly a hard and fast rule, its more like a behavioral pattern where you don't thank the people you are really close to for little things. If you say it, you generally say it like you mean it and not for everyday things.
Maybe because he did not explain it simply and purely. You do not "thank" people who are close to you; helping and favors should simply be a common practice.
"Thank you" is said to people who you cannot return the favor to, or do not expect them from them any sort of kindness.
As people say (more eloquently) in the comments, he's just wrong assuming that people in America say "Thank You" just to end a transaction. But it makes for a better narrative, doesn't it?
I don't understand the big insight that's supposed to be in this article. About every country uses "thank you" in a different way. Like what, they discovered cultural differences?
Usually, acting very polite and formal in informal settings could send the wrong message to people around you from certain cultures as it would be interpreted as the speaker establishing barriers between him/her and the rest and that he/she views them as strangers not as friends which is totally off-putting.
The problem manifests actually in formal settings where some cultures don't have these "lubricants" such as "thanks, please ..etc" in place to ease everyday situations. So, when you expect a simple "thank you" like for helping someone on the street as a small gesture of gratitude towards you and you don't get it, you don't really know exactly if they're being deliberately rude to you and sending their message very clear or they're just being "natural" and "easygoing" i.e. being themselves.
You can't really tell and it's just a reckless form of gambling to take offense at their acts. So, I just give them the benefit of the doubt and assume no malice intended.
Lastly and I speak only from my observations and experiences, some Indians are "obtuse" for the lack of a better word and it seems that most of the social cues that you expect to be interpreted very easily by everyone are completely lost on them but from what I understand now, these people usually come from rural areas and lower socio-economic backgrounds.
So, you basically should not really put too much thought into their processes. That's how they've been raised and therefore are products of their environment. Just move on!
Just to add something, in our culture Egyptian that is, we mostly behave and act like Americans when it comes to these forms of courtesy.
We expect people to exchange (Shukran: Thanks), (Afwan: Welcome), (Lao samahet: please) and so on and so forth in these situations and the lack of them in certain contexts could be interpreted by some folks in certain cases as rudeness and hostility shown toward them.
However, we don't take it to the extreme like Americans would usually do and just insert these courteous words in every sentence or interaction as it might be interpreted as a form of snobbery (distancing yourself from people around you) or fake politeness which is not very tasteful.
Anyway, I just got used to the American way when I'm around Americans and honestly if it were to me, I would take excessive courtesy over the lack thereof or plain rudeness any given day but that's just me.
Hacker News, in spite of the name which implies only content related to programming does have article does are appealing to sensible and curious souls.
Reminds of the book "Debt" by David Graeber. He talks about how many cultures have systems where everyone is indebted to their family and community, and this debt is never to be settled. To want to settle a debt (or to even calculate it) would indicate that a relationship has ended. So it is a huge culture shock to see the degree to which calculation plays a part in US relationships (like Sheryl Sandberg precisely splitting domestic chores with her husband 50:50).
I have a feeling that the non-American system is better because it fosters closer family ties, but that might just be because that's the system I'm familiar with.