flemmings | "The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles"

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rl,
wank

"The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles"

I have no hormones left to rage, was my understanding of the process, but they seem to be raging nonetheless. Sadness.

"We met this woman from Montreal," my American housemates in Tokyo said one day. "She really hated Americans. Really hated Americans. Do *you* hate Americans?"

When I'd recovered from my moment's shock I said, "I'm from Toronto, so if I did I wouldn't tell you." I could have been more specific, because some Torontonians are quite upfront on these things- it varies by cultural background- but one must simplify for the layperson.

Of course what I really wanted to say was an irritated "You bet. They ask asshole questions like 'do you hate Americans?'" But I'm Torontonian- that kind of Torontonian- and I was simply incapable of doing it.

Americans are quite capable of doing it. I see them doing it today all over livejournal. I'm half-tempted to weigh in, because some of the thinking is so very *wrong*. Then I remember I'm Torontonian and don't do things like that- even if I occasionally wish I was from Montreal and did- and the people I admire don't either.

So sigh, shrug, Ils sont fous, ces Américains.' (toc toc)

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Do *you* hate Singaporeans? /trolls

(I am not one, no matter how much xsmoonshine insists on the honorary citizenship thingie.)

How could I hate Singaporeans? Singapore is where bad (middle-class comfortable over-educated over-entitled currently having shitfits on lj) Americans go when they die. Then they have to work like dogs and be guilted by their parents and are flogged with canes when they jaywalk or drop tissues on the street. And no one has a car!

FTR I'm constantly impressed at the sane serenity of the S'pers I read. Possibly because they don't wave their traumas around the way we do, but possibly because they have a sense of proportion. (I know you're not Singaporean. You're one of those bitter cynical Malays that exist in such profusion.)

Hmm. If Americans come here before they die, they receive inflated salaries for minimal work because the locals have low self-esteem and thus dare not do what the thing the Americans are hired to do (i.e., being a Foreign Talent). Also, if they are male, there is no shortage of Sarong Party Girls to cater to, what else, their partying needs! I have asked around but there seems to no niche for the Sarong Party Boys market. At least the het one. Come on, American girls!

>I am not ethnic Malay either! =P (http://mikeneko.livejournal.com/211446.html)

Ah, right. You are Malaysian. The only Malay I know is Singaporean. I am a Canadian and also French, but not French Canadian; I'm Anglo as well as anglophone, but I am not English, British, nor (alas) eligible for membership in the EC.

Post-colonialism is fun.

ahaha! obviously I didn't read far enough down the posts! sorry for the mistake!

But we loves you whoever/however/ you describe yourself because you are you and to me you are Canadian! Heee!

there seems to no niche for the Sarong Party Boys market. At least the het one - Especially the het one. For sure. The ghei scene on the other hand is alive, well adn thriving.

Of course we are not supposed to know/acknowledge such things are we??? ^_~ hee!

You are not utilizing your national resources (i.e., boys and girls) to the max! Why turn a blind eye to such high-potential source of national income? Franchise it, promote it, IPO it --> profit!

ahahahah*falls out of chair laughing!* OMG ...that is like in some cases SO much how it is!!! Heee!

Annnd a bitter cynical Malay!!! Gosh seriously ...I thought I was one of few Malays locally that I do know wow! so cool! I get asked all the time if I'm foreign. Samoan or Fijian ... usually, then it's Thai or Filipina. Uhn --or unless you mean Malaysian.

sane serenity *giggles at being described as such* <<< possibly you can't mean me though thinking about it. ~~considering the few uhmmm instances of 'loss of control' over really mundane things!~~

The few Malays I read (yourself included) and the slightly more ethnic Chinese Malaysians ditto, seem to have a more balanced and sophisticated attitude than, well, us over here, for sure. This in spite of the fact that by NAmerican standards, both Malaysians and LRDers have a lot to complain about, just on a day to day level. 'Ah, my BL manga got grabbed by Customs again, guess I'll have to buy them in Japanese when I go to Tokyo and try sneaking them in.' Consider the shrieking and cursing that would have accompanied that if it'd been a NAmerican.

Yes, do put 'loss of control' in quotation marks. I called it the mildest venting, you call it 'but that's really not *me*.' You prove my point.

This is weird. When I replied "mustn't complain" to the usual "how are you"s, one of the gone-native Americans remarked, "You have not integrated at all, have you?"

Grouching is a national pastime here. The difference to NAmericans? One complains *and* gets off the couch to do something about the problem. The other... uh blames mommy/government/china/amerika/their ISP for everything and that's it.

YES I AGREE.

Not something I'm proud of. >_>

*dogpiles mjj*

so i am guessing flemming's LJ reading filter plays the role of the rose-tinted glasses here ^^

'Pileup', please, 'pileup'. Dogpile suggests that what you're doing is un-called-for. And how can an opinion ever be un-called-for?

It is because we pounce on you like enthusiastic puppies all with our own Very Important Opinions! /yapyapyap

yes yes pile-up dogpile whatever I agree - we luvs you muchly! hee!!! yap yap yap!

You reconcile me to the use of dogpile. ^_^ Yap yap yap and Very Important Opinions, indeed; and *so* boundlessly enthusiastic. If only the process was always as good-natured as dogs piling.

One complains *and* gets off the couch to do something about the problem.

Only that the first line of doing something, at least online, involves complaining even more loudly in many places and calling on other people to complain loudly as well. Let's send a petition to the station! Let's join fandom_counts! Here's wossface's email, tell him what you think about basic accounts being deleted!

Better than doing nothing? Possibly. Useful? Debatable. And when it's actually a personal matter, like shipping wars, and everyone weighs in to tell a poster how very wrong she is, complete with pornographic macros and death threats? Ay caramba.

It's the "we can change the world" mentality that I appreciate in you guys. I am so frustrated by the local workforce. They *do* have the capabilities, but they are so frozen by the inertia and lack of self-confidence and fear of responsiblity [1] that they just toil (yes, toil, not Ossie-no-worries-sit) and watch life goes by.

[1] There's a term in the local slang called arrow. It just summarizes the LRD attitude which frustrates me the most. From chatty rooster site:

ARROW (Contributed by Half-Cocked)
Another term inherited from the Army. It means to be tasked with something, usually unpleasant or troublesome.
1. "Wah lau, I kena arrow clean toilet!"
2. "So suay, I was just in the office, den he come and arrow me type his document."

But yeah, why babble? Per icon, this is not the snow in front of my lawn. (Oops, I dont own one.)

they are so frozen by the inertia and lack of self-confidence and fear of responsiblity [1] that they just toil (yes, toil, not Ossie-no-worries-sit) and watch life goes by.

Yes, that would get very wearing in very short order. I can see a justfication for the American 'better to do the wrong thing than to do nothing at all' under those circs.

"complete with pornographic macros and death threats" Eh? reallly ... I keep thinking I ought to investigate some of these other sites and things other people read and stuff (I get it all secondhand from folk like yourself) ... but then again I think I'm fine with secondhand.

It could be the Singaporean ~~brainwashing~~ training reflex of not wanting to join in and rocking the boat. I mean half the time I can see what the other party means/wants but the other half of it I think well it's life really and think maybe they ought to deal with it. To a lot of people that transltaes to being cold, aloof and robotic or somesuch.

Anyway it''s late and I should refrain from making comments at times where the brain obviously doesn't work at full capacity. ^_^ and obviously not being awake enough to use simple html

Edited 2008-05-29 19:00 (UTC)

You're fine with secondhand. Really!

It could be the Singaporean training reflex

It could be. Or it could be you're just sensible and polite. I'd go for the latter.

That's pretty weird because whining about The Way Things Are is the unofficial national pastime. Singaporeans do complain. A lot. Most days though I just can't be bothered to translate mild irritation into LJ spleen.

Singaporeans do complain. A lot. Most days though I just can't be bothered to translate mild irritation into LJ spleen.

Maybe that's the difference? Partly that the irritation is mild (read a few FFLs sometime: there's a high level of outrage at quite mundane stuff, and the level of outrage at serious stuff is stratospheric) and partly that you think it unworthy of comment.

LOL! I adore you! Please stay Torontonian.

But the People To The South Of Me insist that one must be honest and upfront in one's opinions, and welcoming of confrontation, heated debate, and a general courtroom atmosphere. The American influence as ever threatens the national Canadian character. Maybe instead of mandatory Canadian content we should have mandatory non-expression of opinion days, just for practice.

What happens when one genuinely has no opinion on something?

Fake it for politeness' sake, as one does with orgasm.

The notion that someone has no opinion on something, or even worse, most things, is hard for westerners to get their heads around. We have opinions by reflex, as we breathe, and not having them feels to us like being half-alive.

Seriously, this was a cultural point I had to teach my Japanese students. Casual conversational overtures in English usually involve asking what people think about something, which my Japanese students generally found impossible to answer because in fact they had no strong personal opinion about whatever it might be. Similar overtures in Japanese usually involve statements no one can disagree with, that you agree with several times over, and this is the bulk of conversation. English conversation probably feels like a minefield for the Japanese, and Japanese conversation is certainly like a meal without salt for westerners.

Its the aloofness thing again. I was just saying to someone else elsewhere that many thought me aloof and snobby even (when I first arrived in England) because I never said anything. Well not least that part of it came from not understanding dialect/accents but a lot of it just sounded like mindless gossip and bitching to me and I couldn't get my head round "Well if they don't like what/who/how ever" WHY? talk about it?

Its not to say that we don't gripe and gossip we do, but its less a social thing and very much a private thing and all comically hush-hush.

its less a social thing and very much a private thing and all comically hush-hush.

Ah-hah. That exists in Secret Japan as well, because I kept being told by other gaijin that yes indeed, the ever-smiling Japanese will happily bitch about their miserable lives to stray foreigners, who don't count. They never did it to me, which made me feel unloved, until I realized that the gaijin who got confided to were ones who didn't speak much Japanese and couldn't rat on the bitcher to her mother-in-law or neighbours, supposing she knew the bitcher's m-i-l or neighbours, which she didn't but she *might* so better safe than sorry.

But here, indeed, chronic complaining is a social-bonding ritual. And of course it's a bit the sacredness of opinion too: if you feel something strongly you must express your feelings or you're not being honest. Even if the strong feelings are about 'how can people slash Gojou and Sanzou?' or rather 'how can people slash Gojou and Sanzou??!!' I recognize the reflex in myself: these people are wrong wrong wrong and it's my moral duty to point out that fact out. There are drawbacks to a strong puritan Christian tradition in one's cultural make-up.

*nods head vigorously* - agrees emphatically!!! Since she labelled you as such I shall not disagree as my knowledge of geography of your country is sadly and pityfully lacking!

Oh dear. I try and stay away claiming Englishness, but unfortunately that does not excuse me from anything at all.

I maintain that it's the basic Englishness of Toronto- OK, Britishness, because we're equally Scots in our founding culture- that explains the tendency to shy away from too pronounced expression of opinion. Immigration changes everything, but it's been noted that TO has a flattening effect even on exuberant cultures.

I'm ambivalent, let's say. Mostly the tendency to overstate opinions and slug it out provides passing entertainment for those of us who find the exercise indecent and irresistible. Periodically it slops well over into the area 'this is not the way to do things.'

And if everything else fails, we English can always talk about the weather. :)

Weather is fascinating, she says with no irony at all. But only if you have an opinion about it (and a good memory for weather past) because merely pointing out that it's hot when it's hot is an exercise in futility.

I dunno; English dinner party conversation is all about expressing opinion. I find it terribly wearing. Despite claims of reticence, upper-middle class attitude especially seems to be 'interfere and know you have the right to'. Viz my public-school-educated classmate's oft-aired opinions on the passivity of the Russian people, which considering relative cultural constraints and tendence of British to do same is a bit much.

... Myself, I was surprised on reading old discussions of Utena to find that, ah, people seem to consider passive aggression a problem automatically.

Possibly there's a difference in people's definition of passive aggression? I certainly see a difference between passivity used to manipulate someone else into the overt action you don't want the responsibility for taking, and the Japanese enryo, hanging back/ reticence that wants to avoid imposing your desires on other people and so lets them act first if so desired. It's in the motivation, which is a hard area to judge at times.

But for sure, passivity per se is generally thought unhealthy over here. I saw one of the lj board candidates getting slammed because when fannish debates turn ugly she tends to draw back and, god forbid, wait a while to see what happens. Instead of, yanno, reiterating her position in ever more heated terms to an unlistening opposition as everyone else does.

Eh, I didn't know hanging back counted as passive aggression too ...

Seemed to be a) keeping inner feelings unknowable and b) expressing one's opnions by ambiguously worded digs rather than being upfront. Which, sure this can be carried to unhealthy extremes, but a lot of the time such behaviour strikes me as perfectly sensible and polite.

Also careful description of honne and tatamae (sp?) in textbooks has me waving my arms like, how is presenting a polite face to the world at all unusual? Possibly there is some cultural subtlety I am missing.

Hanging back can be seen as passive aggression- your refusal to act requires the other person to act instead. Hence it's manipulative.

Yes, well, I'm with you on concealment of feelings and indirection being perfectly sensible and polite when not taken to extremes. But reading these things correctly does depend on there being a homogeneity of cultural background. If you come from an upfront lay-it-all-out culture, like most of NAmerica, it can feel like walking in a fog with no sign posts. 'Why won't you *tell* me what you want?'

(Story from a German woman I knew, also an up-front culture. She'd au paired in England. One day her employer said to her 'It'd be nice if the windows were clean' and Urte agreed that indeed it would be nice, and didn't understand why the woman seemed so displeased. Urte thought it very funny when she found out.)

Tatemae. IME most people do honne and tatemae, they just draw the lines in different places. Even here, people who say everything that comes into their heads, the way 4-year-olds do, are seen as socially lacking.

Of course what I really wanted to say was an irritated "You bet. They ask asshole questions like 'do you hate Americans?'" But I'm Torontonian- that kind of Torontonian- and I was simply incapable of doing it. You were too nice.

I apologise for the sudden spammage in comments I couldn't help myself. ^__^

It's called 'lively conversation' in most circles.

Out in the West we're a bit more outspoken with opinions but yeah, why would someone ask a loaded question like that? It's unfair to put someone on the spot. At least work up to it with a bottle of wine and some good eats before you pop such a question on someone.

And preface it with a 'Do you mind if I ask?' at the very least, to indicate you have some vague notion that the question is just the weeniest bit iffy.

Ah well, cultures. They vary. When

shiny_monkey was first in Japan she bought a papasan chair and had it delivered to her small Gunma apartment. Neighbours watched it being delivered and speculated on why she'd want one and asked her was it because she was pregnant. Which kerblonxed her a touch, while I wouldn't have had any particular reaction at all. 'Reasonable conclusion, reasonable question, personal? of course not.' And we come from the same province even.

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Somehow... somehow I'd always thought those stories were urban legends. I knew American tourists naturally assumed they could use their money here, because in fact they can, but the snow in July thing... truly, *not* a myth?

How odd, I wouldn't have believed I had any faith in humanity left to lose.

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*amused at own automatic placating "See? We know most Americans aren't that stupid! And it's partly our own fault!" pre-emptive reassurances. Oh, Canada.*

A truly national vested interest in being Nice. And inoffensive and fair and non-confrontational and Canadian.

Though hormone boosted snark suggests that long experience makes any Canadian wary of slamming Americans because they take it badly. *They're* the ones who'll tell you that all Americans aren't like that or that they personally aren't like that and that you're being unfair and offensive and trying to pick a fight, and anyway You Just Don't Like Americans, which is considered the crushing unanswerable rejoinder. How I wish they'd just try serene agreement for once. 'Yeah, we don't know much about other countries. It's a pity.'

*hides*

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"The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles"

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