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.
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 :)
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.
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.
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 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.
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?
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.
Yeah that system is better because it fosters closer family ties.
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.
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.
There is just no coorelation. The american "thank you" is simply not translatable to idiomatic hindi.
An american is not diluting the importance of gratitude by saying thanks to the bus driver.
Just as an indian is not an ungrateful bastard for not saying thanks to his parents.
> 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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
(Naturally, in either case, it would make sense if the thanked did something that went above-and-beyond.)
He is confusing our stock phrase with something that is an entirely different concept.
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 pretty much just means "Thank you".
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.
http://www.tofugu.com/2013/10/24/sorry-for-saying-thank-you-...
http://www.livinglanguage.com/blog/2013/06/20/how-to-say-tha...
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.
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!*
*sorry, couldn't resist. ;)
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 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.
> 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'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.
I guess the word "gratitude" is routinely badly translated, too, in that case.
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.
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.
I appreciate a friendly and frictionless transaction /because/ it fails to happen so often.
> 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.
- Slavoj Žižek
I agree, though, that pre-thanking someone before they've done what you ask is presumptuous.
Looks like he might be wrong though.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
So yes it must be cultural difference in certain part of India, it certainly doesn't represent the most of Indians I know.
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."
That seems a bit sarcastic ... ;)
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.
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).
[1]: http://www.russianlife.com/blog/why-dont-russians-smile/
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?
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.
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.
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.
- "Honey, we should probably go" - "Well, thank you both for coming"
I have never attended a social event where the host would say "thank you for coming, see you soon" out of the blue.
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!
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.
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.
- Thanking for an ordinary action, i.e. after buying something at a shop: no answer.
- Thanking for something that didn't cost me very much, i.e. lending £20 to a friend: I usually answer with "no worries (mate)".
- Thanking for something that cost me in some way (time, money, effort), i.e. helping pushing a stranger's car on the street: "You're welcome".
I never really thought about it. Are weekly or monthly that much more common?
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?
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.
Pretty much everyone in Indian metro cities understands simple English words like Hi, Hello, OK, Bye, Thank you.
Coming back to your question then yes "shukriyaa" can be used instead of "thanks". "shukriyaa" is less formal than "dhanyavaad"
"Thank you" is said to people who you cannot return the favor to, or do not expect them from them any sort of kindness.
That's a good observation.
Well, thank you!
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!
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.
