<p>In NYC or any city with public transportation, people tend to be a lot more aware of personal space. You don’t make eye contact, and if you should over hear someone having private conversation around you, you never acknowledge it. I’ve seen colleagues on the train and I’ve just given a nod. Therefore it is strange to me when I go outside of NYC to have strangers talk to me, whether it is a simple hello or idle chit chat at check out.</p>
<p>On “pretending to care” . . . in HS I did an exchange program where a girl stayed with my family for a semester and went to school then I stayed with her family in Hamburg, Germany. She was offended that kids in the hall would say, “hi, how’s it going” when they passed her. Se found it to be totally superficial. “They don’t REALLY care how I am,” she said. Maybe not, but they are acknowledging that they see you and your basic humanity. Similarly when we chatted with people at the metro stop she asked later if I knew them. No . . . just being friendly. When I got there I saw how it was - no conversation with people who you didn’t know. Maybe long time friendships were deeper and more lasting (although I’m not convinced) but there was no sense of welcoming or openness or just a sense that one wan’t invisible. I’ll take casual light conversation any day of the week. You couldn’t just pop in to your friend’s house w/o taking flowers and they couldn’t be random flowers . . . odd numbers only - no roses or lilies - no red or white - I learned that 5 yellow tulips are a safe type of flowers to take when visiting at a pre-planned get together. Kids didn’t just drop by or spend the night or stay to dinner on the spur of the moment. Gosh! - my kid randomly spends the night every other weekend.</p>
<p>I was born and raised in the Midwest and now live in New Jersey. I think the differences are largely superficial. Where I live, people move and speak more quickly, and they are more businesslike toward strangers. When I visit my hometown now, I find everyone sooooo slowww. Then I have to laugh at myself.</p>
<p>I don’t believe in the whole Midwest-salt-of-the-earth-virtue stuff. It’s a self-serving myth. But every region has one. Re friendliness: where I grew up, there is a certain very taciturn and reserved rural subculture. These people aren’t chatty. No loud voices, hand gestures, or PDA (in other words, the total opposite of NJ). I don’t think you can characterize the entire Midwest as fake-friendly. To quote The Music Man: “We can be cold as the falling thermometer in December when you ask about our weather in July.”</p>
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<p>We get it, Pizzagirl. You probably don’t need to move to a place where you would dislike the people around you. So, someone does things a way that you don’t like, and you think he/she’s “arrogant” or “presumptive”? No, just different from what you’re used to. You seem to have a lot of disdain for people who don’t adhere to your opinion of how they should behave. I’m sure that the dry cleaning employee would find your behavior arrogant if you let her know, through words or actions, that you didn’t “care about her random family members”. Also, in some places, dropping by is common and welcomed, not considered at all rude.</p>
<p>I’ve traveled many places in this country and have spent some time overseas. Every time I’ve gone anywhere, I try to fit in as much as I can with the local culture and not criticize the people there. Whether people are reserved or talkative, brusque or friendly, they want to be respected. That respect might involve giving them physical and/or verbal space or it might involve sitting close to them and listening as they talk about their families.</p>
<p>You may remember the lady who hugged Queen Elizabeth when she stopped by her neighborhood on a visit to Washington DC. Alice Frazier didn’t know she was breaking royal protocol. She was just doing what she had done for years, what she had learned growing up in her small town in North Carolina and had experienced in her neighborhood in Washington. She welcomed people to her home with a hug. <a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2005/03/20/alice_frazier_at_81_southerner_hugged_queen_elizabeth_ii/”>http://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2005/03/20/alice_frazier_at_81_southerner_hugged_queen_elizabeth_ii/</a> The polite thing to do in those situations? Hug back. 
The Queen, rather surprised, minded her manners and kept a smile on her face. <a href=“The Queen, Elizabeth II - HELLO!”>http://www.hellomagazine.com/royalty/gallery/201104195293/queen-85-years-birthday/23/</a> Sometimes we’re out of our comfort zone and we just have to go with the flow.</p>
<p>^excellent example : )</p>
<p>I’m hanging around this morning hoping PG will give us an example as QM requested. That might help me understand where she is coming from. Which at this point I just really don’t get. </p>
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<p>This. There is going to be a very big difference between Chicago or Milwaukee and Holland or Muskegon. </p>
<p>I lived in the South until I was 14, and in the Midwest since then. I’d say the South was friendlier, because we knew our neighbors and would have dinner together sometimes and all that. Never once have I done that in Midwest. Though, this may be due to the fact that I lived in a fairly small city in the south, and a much larger city in the Midwest. </p>
<p>I found saintfan’s post about the exchange program with a student in Hamburg, Germany, to be very interesting, yet at the same time surprising. In Germany, people no longer ask each other “Wie geht’s?” as a form of greeting, without expecting a lengthy discourse on how it is going?</p>
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<p>I’ve seen that, too. I’ve developed an addiction to Scandinavian murder mysteries. And recently I realized that one of the reasons I can relate to the characters so well is that the emotional landscape and cultural norms described aren’t that different from where I grew up. </p>
<p>The midwestern suburb where I live now is actually much more friendly and neighborly than the rural farm town I grew up in. </p>
<p>Hamburg vs Munich - different cultures or not?</p>
<p>Living in Germany, I always knew my dry cleaners by name and something about their personal history and they knew something about me. And they instigated the relationship. Where I lived in the ivy covered NE, the dry cleaners had known me for many years and were sincerely interested in how my kids were going to turn out. They were quite relieved in the end.</p>
<p>". I’m sure that the dry cleaning employee would find your behavior arrogant if you let her know, through words or actions, that you didn’t “care about her random family members”. "</p>
<p>But I wouldn’t tell her that. What would be the point? I would just smile sort of blandly, not really make much comment other than basic “uh-huhs,” and finish the business of getting my dry cleaning and getting out of there. </p>
<p>What bothers me is when I am in a hurry and the cashier is having a leisure chit chat with customer(s) ahead of me. </p>
<p>I remember being soooo annoyed in Japan when I went into a shop to buy some “necessities” and the woman at the counter took forever to carefully wrap my purchase. I wanted to scream, “Just throw the !@#$ tampons in a bag and let me out of here!” </p>
<p>ETA: But I didn’t. I wanted to. But I didn’t. </p>
<p>*But I wouldn’t tell her that. What would be the point? I would just smile sort of blandly, not really make much comment other than basic “uh-huhs,” and finish the business of getting my dry cleaning and getting out of there. *</p>
<p>^ Not fake friendliness? : )</p>
<p>@ QuantMech<br>
“I found saintfan’s post about the exchange program with a student in Hamburg, Germany, to be very interesting, yet at the same time surprising. In Germany, people no longer ask each other “Wie geht’s?” as a form of greeting, without expecting a lengthy discourse on how it is going?”</p>
<p>My observation wasn’t recently - I went to HS back in the dark ages, but that was saved for people who you knew well, not casual passers by. When we went “wandering” in the forest (groomed trails) over Easter break the letting your hair down greeting for strangers was “Gruss Gott” (excuse the lack of umlaut) That was reserved only for that holiday occasion so kind of a formalized casual greeting.</p>
<p>I just remembered a couple other differences we noticed.
Where we lived in the midwest, the people around us got married a lot younger than our circle in NYC, and had kids at an earlier age.
When we went to school activities in NYC, the other parents spanned a wide margin but we were close to the norm, and a good number of them were a few years older than we were. A few even much older.</p>
<p>Where we lived in the midwest, we were far out on the old side when we went to our kids’ parents days, and the average seemed to be a lot younger.</p>
<p>Also, probably due to the low cost of living there, a lot of the wives didn’t work.</p>
<p>@saintfan: With regard to greeting people in Germany, I would use the more formal form, as you suggest, when I met a stranger, or went into a shop. Personally, I would have guessed it was fine to say 'Wie geht’s?" to any other high school student that I passed in the hallway (back when I was in high school)–but I guess that the German tradition may be more formal than I’d think, even among high schoolers.</p>
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<p>Huh? Did you go to Bavaria for vacation? IME, Gruss Gott is pretty much the standard greeting in Bavaria and Austria. You don’t need to be on vacation to use it. Most of the time, people who use it are Catholic. </p>
<p>I just checked Wikipedia, and it’s explanation of the term is consistent with my experience. </p>
<p><a href=“Grüß Gott - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grüß_Gott</a></p>
<p>Thinking it over a bit, I am inclined to agree with jonri–the German-speaking regions where I have spent the most time are indeed Bavaria and Austria.</p>
<p>In any event, in the context of the original issue on the thread, I think that a greeting of “How are you?” needs to be understood as an idiom meaning “Hello,” and not as a “fake” inquiry about someone’s well being.</p>
<p>Not Bavaria - more central (Teutoburger Wald) - but my impression at the time was that if you were from Hamburg you needed to be on vacation and far from home to us a greeting that was that “familiar” if you greeted a passerby at all. My point was one of strong local/regional differences not to generalize about ALL Germans. If someone from Bavaria went to school in Hamburg they just might be taken aback at the culture as well.</p>
<p>Which is not to say that people from Hamburg aren’t friendly . . . just not immediately open and familiar.</p>