I didn’t know what small talk was until I went to study abroad. Most of my foreign classmates often asked me things like ”how are you doing?” etc. and when I literally answered them what I had been up to recently they were very confused.
”Dude...no need to tell your life story, just say ’good’ and that’s it”
I replied ”Why do you ask a question if you don’t care about the answer?”
In Africa we are the total opposite. We are the masters of small talk. Traditionally when you meet someone you need to ask how the person is, how his/her family are and whether or not the rains have been good (rains are an indicator for the size of the harvest nevermind that we buy most of our food now). Some people go through all the family member, how is your dad, how is your mother, how is your daughter is she enjoying school, where is your brother now, how are his kids, has the last born started grade school ... After all these greetings only then can you get to your business. I swear this is the reason Africa as a whole got left behind in terms of technological development. Half the day is passes on small talk. It does make for pleasant interactions. You get to know the person you are dealing with well as we like to say, there is no hurry in Africa. In the cities we do have less small talk.
If you ever get a chance to listen to a South African radio call-in show, you will hear just about every caller ask the show host/DJ how he or she is before airing their view. It can be irritating listening to the show host say I am fine 100 times.
> traditionally when you meet someone you need to ask how the person is, how his/her family are and whether or not the rains have been good (rains are an indicator for the size of the harvest nevermind that we buy most of our food now). Some people go through all the family member, how is your dad, how is your mother, how is your daughter is she enjoying school, where is your brother now, how are his kids, has the last born started grade school ... After all these greetings only then can you get to your business. I swear this is the reason Africa as a whole got left behind in terms of technological development.
I would be interested to know what standard Japanese practice is. In my mind (informed only by stereotype) they'd lean toward the ask-about-the-family end of the spectrum too.
There's more nuance in the greeting than at first glance, based on social distance.
Implicit in the question is, "How much are you looking to talk?" and "how close do you feel to the person asking?"
Also encoded is my expectation of conversation. If I say it casually or to a group, I am expecting a casual response. If I slow it down and emphasize "Are" or "You", I'm providing subtext that I am expecting a longer conversation or are genuinely interested in a longer conversation that can dive into more personal matters. If I know someone isn't doing well (death in the family, etc), it can slow down but not have the increased pitch of the other greeting, inviting knowledge that we're already past that.
When responding, I have the opportunity to interrupt the normal flow in both polite and impolite forms. All of this is highly contextual so that the "simple" answer is to say "Good, and you?" but there's subtext to learn.
As an American, I had to learn the same thing. Only as a young kid, but I specifically remember this experience.
I think most people forget this, that you have to learn that a lot of conversation is not literal, it is opaque code for something else.
I am still a pretty literal conversationalist but I can translate fluently.
A friend had a great anecdote about his first meal with his girlfriend's family. The father asked, "is there any salt?" and my friend answered "yes" and just continued eating. He really had no idea that people say things like that instead of what they mean, which is "please pass me the salt," because his family would always just come out and say something more literal.
People who are used to using indirect language are usually shocked that there is any other way to talk.
Story time: At a party of math students, the following dialogue happened between classmates (names changed):
Alice: "Do you know whether Carol will come to the party?"
Bob: "She will come, but somewhat later. I think she will be there in half an hour."
Alice: "I am not interested in whether she will come or not. If I wanted to know that information, I would simply have asked you whether she will come and if you did not know, you would simply have answered 'I don't know'. But this is not the question that I asked. I just wanted to know whether you have the knowledge whether she will come or not and that is why i formulated the question exactly this way and not differently."
IMO Alice seems rude and even manipulative, first asking a question, then lecturing the person who answees the question in a perfectly valid way.
The normal thing to do in such a case (where I grew up and where I live now) would be to accept the answer as it 1. Answers the question at hand. 2. Is a perfect non-offensive interpretation of the intent of the question.
Why did Alice want to know whether Bob knew if Carol was coming, but didn't want to know if Carol was coming? That seems like a weird thing to want to know.
There were these two British gentlemen coaching our doctoral programme summer meetup. I think their task was to make us better communicate our research. Probably quite hard because we were all from a STEM background and at least half of us Finns.
During a break, we were seated in a table of five and this British guy sits with us for a while and asks some generic questions, but soon leaves our table because he wants to meet the other students, too. Then one of the Finnish students next to me asks ironically: "So... was that supposed to be that famous small talk?", making many of us smirk.
Semi-related: My uncle grew up speaking Gaelic and learned English in his later teens and has become a successful musician, doing a lot of touring. He mentioned to me, over a few glasses, that the language of the US is Sports, not English. The doormen at hotels, the roadies, the servers in restaurants, the cashiers, the flight attendants, other musicians, etc. all of them 'spoke sports.' In his experience, if you started talking about the Lakers'/Broncos'/Red-Wings'/local-teams' most recent game, you'd get an instant connection with that person (and therefore a much better experience). He made it a point, while on the road, to watch the ESPN highlights back at the hotel, to have something to talk about with valets, cashiers, while standing in line, etc. For my uncle, it made road-life a LOT easier and more friendly.
So, in most of the US at least, remember that small talk can be made easier by talking recent sports news.
Entirely anecdotal but my one experience of Finnish "flirting" consisted of telling fairly rude stories over a large bottle of vodka at the kitchen table (at the house we were both lodging in).
When I felt it was time for bed, we both went upstairs. I went to go to my room, on my own, and she said "no, we'll use my room". Or words to that effect. At no point, up till then, had it occurred to me there was anything between us. Just friends getting drunk.
No idea if this is typical but it was a very pleasant surprise to my teenage self.
Judging by a few nights in Helsinki a long time ago, the main strategy for men seemed to be drinking themselves into such a helpless state that it triggered some sort of maternal instinct in a girl walking by.
It seemed to work for them. Actually talking to a girl also worked if I remember correctly.
A person I met on a plane to Oulu told me her experience (so I have no idea how representative this is): the guy took her out, then they were drinking - but he was barely talking at all - and in the end he asked, "Do you wanna have sex?" Which is funny as I met several Finns who were not like that, they seemed to enjoy talking and company and general.
On a related note, what happens at parties where lots of people don't know each other? (Assuming that happens at all.)
As much as smalltalk is unneeded in everyday life, having a script that brings out some general background ("so what do you do?", "are you from around here?", "how do you know {host}?") does help when strangers are looking for common ground where they can talk more deeply.
In Finland we have these things called "Pönötys" and "kursaileminen". I'm half kidding, but half serious. Pönötys means awkward formal standing when you are wearing a suit or can of beer, but don't know where to put your hands or anybody to talk to. It actually happens a lot. "Kursaileminen" is kind of pretending that you don't need anything and have nothing to say. It's finnish way of being polite because you are not bothering anybody. Also happens quite a lot.
You do both of those and then you sneak to someone and ask them anything. It might well be "how do you know the host?" But Finns are quite flexible with the subjects because there is no culture of what you ought to speak about. You can ask anything, you don't have to ask anything. But do expect to get a throughout and honest answer.
It's great if you're imaginative and curious or if you want to be left alone. But if you fall in the middle it can get difficult.
Bullshit questions that you ask in hopes of stumbling into something interesting to talk about (ie how well do you know the host) is the essence of smalltalk.
We just continue starting with the useless questions even if we already have an actual topic to work with ;)
Met my American partner in a party in Berlin, talked a couple of hours about philosophy and been happy together for some years now. Although not living in Finland I can still call myself a Finn and it wasn't that hard.
I think that what you describe as doing is definitely small talk. It's just not the dumbed-down type expected by many people in the US or some anglo saxon societies. Also the message of the article is actually contradicting your observation b/c it insinuates that Finnish people pretty much don't talk in such situations - which you did. And I hope you can unlearn again b/c as a German I really prefer people with your take on conversing! Those people should rather learn from you.
I'm Norwegian, and had the same experience moving to the UK. For several years I kept grumbling about how rude people were to ask and then just keep walking while I stopped to answer.
Finn here. Sauna changes the way people talk, taking them out from the day-to-day on to deeper topics. There isn't anything else to do besides staring at the steaming rocks.
The atmosphere suits it well; dimly lit and relaxing. Laying on your back on grass and staring at the stars would inspire similar conversations.
I have a big problem with this as well. Once, while studying in Shanghai, an (Italian) classmate asked me and, seeing my usual struggle to respond, remarked "this question is always so difficult for you".
This is not a “small talk,” this is just greeting. Similar to the British “How do you do, sir?”, to which you answer, “How do you do?” and that’s that.
I also learned it the hard way, but coming from the other extreme.
I grew up in Italy, where asking “how are you doing” is not uncommon. Only difference: people actually expect a short summary of what you’ve been up to...
"how are you doing?" is literally asking just that. You answered with what you had been "up to" recently - that doesn't make sense.
A better example would be your friend asking "what you been up to?" and you answered in very detailed manner when your friend might have been expecting a brief answer like: "not much" or "I've been busy".
It is strange that this article sees Finland as an odd man out in terms of customer-service interactions, and it suggests the USA or the UK is the norm. I have lived in both southern Europe (where people are claimed to be more extrovert) and in Finland, and generally interacting with a "barista" or cashier in both places is exactly the same, consisting of only the words "Hello" and "Thanks". In the USA one might get small talk coming from employees who don’t know you, but that tends to be feigned and is therefore rather creepy.
Some things are universal but a shopkeeper making smalltalk is not creepy in the US, even if it is in other countries. It's a cultural thing.
One of the benefits of smalltalk in shops is that if you have a question you don't have to interrupt anybody. You're already having a conversation with a clerk so you might as well ask a question about the merchandise. I don't have to get anybody's attention. I'm not advocating for small talk here but merely trying to explain that it is not without benefits.
The idea that smalltalk is "feigned" doesn't make sense to me, I'm not sure how that word could be applied here. To give some context, in the US there are definitely two different types of smiles. One type of smile expresses happiness and another type of smile is used for polite social interactions. These expressions don't look similar and you wouldn't confuse the two, at least instinctually. Your instinctual response to a polite smile (amygdala) will recognize that it does not express happiness, but if your higher thought processes (visual cortex) think it expresses happiness then the mismatch will make you feel uneasy. If you think of the polite smile as feigned happiness, it seems insincere, but it is not feigned happiness... it is sincere politeness. If you are from a culture that does not smile to strangers it will naturally seem insincere to you unless you get used to it.
> The idea that smalltalk is "feigned" doesn't make sense to me
Ever talk to an American waiter about this? Often they will complain about their customers and how much they hate them, but they still have to be smiley and make small talk because 1) they feel they won’t get tips without it, and 2) their bosses insist on it.
I've been living in the US for almost all of my life, various regions, and I still don't see how small talk is "feigned". (I am curious what your social background is, and what your experience is with US culture.) The construction does not even make sense to me, and the phrase seems logically impossible to me, so my guess is that we are using different definitions for "feigned" or "small talk" or some other term.
"To feign" means to do something in a way that it looks like you're doing something else, so I could feign that I care about you and care about your well-being, but secretly I don't care about you and I hate you. However, small talk is not this. Small talk is just polite conversation that does not cover any issues of real relevance but merely demonstrates friendly intentions or a desire for positive interactions. So when I say, "How are you?", if this is small talk, I am not actually feigning interest. We both understand that I am not actually expressing any interest in your well being, I am only trying to communicate that I want to have a positive interaction with you. In Linguistics this phenomenon is called "pragmatics", and it is the phenomenon that the actual meaning of an utterance can be completely different from its literal meaning. Another example of pragmatics is "Do you have a pen?" This is literally a question of fact, but most likely it is a request to borrow a pen. Someone saying "Do you have a pen?" is not feigning interest in whether you have a pen any more than someone saying "How are you doing today?" is feigning interest in your well being. If you ask me, "Do you have a pen?" and I reply, "Yes," with no further comment or action I'm being rude, just as I would be rude if a sales clerk asked me, "How are you doing today?" and I started rambling about my upcoming divorce and how my mother was recently diagnosed with cancer.
That's not to say waiters don't feign interest or feign happiness. Yes, many people in the service industry are required to "perform" or express certain attitudes. This can be emotionally draining. Small talk is not this; small talk is genuine and it does not express interest or emotion. "Feigned" small talk doesn't make sense logically.
If you think it is creepy then you are applying standards from another culture to our own. You have every right to make these judgments but I don't see a case here for the supremacy of one single culture's interpretation of small talk.
If your interest in my well being does not include listening to me talking about my illness for the next twenty minutes, your interest is feigned. This is what it’s all about in countries that don’t bother much with small talk, and your example with asking about someone owning a pen (while interesting in other aspects) isn’t really a serviceable metaphor to that.
There's no feigned interest, if you think I have expressed interested in you talking about your illness for the next twenty minutes then you have literally misunderstood what I said. I can sympathize with people who find this confusing—the meaning of the question “How are you doing today?” cannot be deduced from structure. I have known people who are native English speakers who grew up in the US and find this deduction difficult—they have to ask for clarification. I have an autistic friend who does this regularly, but she does not accuse people of being insincere.
The example of a pen is not a metaphor. It is another example of the underlying linguistic phenomenon (pragmatics) in action. Just like the meaning of “Do you have a pen?” cannot be deduced from its structure, the meaning of “How are you doing today?” cannot be deduced from its structure. You are required to use context in both cases, and for the same reason. I am not sure why you are calling it a metaphor, since I literally described it as "another example of pragmatics". It is not a similar phenomenon, it is literally the same phenomenon in action.
Customer-service interactions as they are in the US are not popular and are considered obtrusive even in more extrovert cultures such as southern and eastern Europe. Small talk there generally takes place between colleagues and friends.
As a customer, I'm not exactly interested in small talk, and I know that the service person isn't either, but I walk a fine line. Because I care about people as people, I want get the message across, "I see you. I know you're a real person and not a robot. Thank you for being here to help me get my lunch today." I think non-verbal communication goes a long way with this. (for the opposite effect, I see people order without so much as looking at the service person) In any case, it's important to me that people aren't treated as robots or less-than because of the job they're doing.
Years ago, someone pointed out to me that we tend to hustle through courtesy interactions faster than we really need to, which leads to tropes like "Have a nice flight!" "You too!" Since then, I've made an effort to reduce the number of those interactions, but spend a bit more focus on them. I've been surprised - consciously considering what I mean when I say 'thank you' apparently changes the delivery enough that people react visibly differently to it.
(It's tougher with phone calls, especially when some customer service rep is clearly being recorded and under orders to follow a script; I don't really know what to do there except explicitly say "I know this isn't your fault and you don't have a choice, but I don't want any of what you're offering.")
Yeah, agreed. We've got to figure out the humanitarian side with basic income or something else, but those kinds of jobs are a waste of life. Let them do literally anything else.
If you work in retail, you can see middle age white women get away with behavior (entitlement, rage, abuse) that would normally get cops called were they a different person. Customer service in the US is just straight broken.
I think the other side of this is that using the USA as the far end of the scale is a mistake. A quick trip through much of Latin America, or for that matter the US Midwest, makes clear that the UK and coastal USA still do quite a bit less talking to strangers than other cultures. And by that standard, the stereotypically extroverted parts of Europe (e.g. Italy) are downright reserved.
For some reason, I do find the US standard more facile than either of the poles. Taciturn cultures like the Finns have obvious authenticity because people talk for reasons, but very high interaction cultures have their own sort of sincerity: people talking idly because they're enjoying the act of conversation. Trading a few sentences as pure courtesy misses both marks, and often feels more draining than a much longer conversation.
(Now I wonder if this is tied to US tipping and sales cultures, since "act blandly nice" becomes an important transaction for a lot of people. Obviously it's not the whole story, but I do find even UK conversation rather different than the US pattern.)
I'm a German that lived in the USA for a while, and now that I'm back, at first the customer service was pretty bad in Germany. But I like it now. It can be pretty bad where you might have to beg the sales guy to take your money, but not being bombarded by sales people or way too much bs talking. When I was back in the US, I rented a car, and I didn't really say anything much just answered her questions, I didn't solicit any small talk but she wouldn't shut up about her life. It's like "just give me the car!!!"
I guess it depends, I worked a short bit of time in Berlin (construction project) and among other things I was somehow the "procurement guy" even if my German is far from being good enough (we had a couple interpreters anyway).
I remember distinctly some "queer" conversations with suppliers, we had German engineers and of course approved and compliant to norms projects, in other countries if you called a hardware supplier asking for (say) 1000 hex bolts, 16 mm (M16) diameter, 100 mm long, class 8.8 grade, zinc, nach DIN 931, they would simply state if they had them available and how much they would cost, while in Germany there was always the question "What are you going to use them for?".
They were ( mind you I appreciated it, even if sometimes it was excessive) wanting to make sure that we were asking the "right" product for the intended use, and in many cases (that was waay too many years ago) we had to fax them parts of the projects so that they could make sure before even telling us if they could provide the goods.
> It is strange that this article sees Finland as an odd man out in terms of customer-service interactions, and it suggests the USA or the UK is the norm
It's not really odd at all that an article that is part of a BBC Travel series treats the UK as the baseline norm.
I like how Finns do it. I personally am pretty fine with being silent for a while, even in a company of others. I always have things to think about. But I feel in many places the social expectation is that you have to talk about... something. No matter what, but silence is awkward. That is exhausting sometimes.
Silence is great, but there's something more to small talk than just filling silence. Small talk primes the pump for some good conversation. I can't tell you how many times I've come across great conversations and tidbits of information that I'd never have if I didn't chat up with some kind of nonsense to start the conversation. Or alternatively if someone else didn't. The initial part of the conversation is useless, we all know that, but it's a handshake of sorts to see if there's a possibility of a good exchange of something more. If the other person doesn't want to talk, then a quick canned response is the equivalent of, "Hi I acknowledge you, but I don't want to talk right now.". There's a protocol. If the person wants to talk they'll give the canned response, with an added tidbit that can be grabbed onto for further conversation. People are usually just going through their day on autopilot, waiting for a opportunity to connect with someone.
I feel this is in the same vein as asking every girl on the street if she wants to have a drink.
That definitely can be one way to meet one’s life partner. But it’s so grating from the other side, even if the request is very polite and non pushy.
Some people live for the human contact, others don’t want any. Honestly it’s a PITA when the social norm puts an obligation to respond, even briefly, to not seem rude.
If it’s a protocol, there should be an option to just drop the incomming packets and go on with one’s life.
This is true if you are running into people on such a basis that it becomes cumbersome. It may be a cultural/geographical thing, where in the US there's ton's of space and in some areas, especially rural ones where you see more small talk, it's possible that you don't see anyone for days at a time, which means you run into your neighbor and the small talk is a way to prime up a conversation. The more dense the population the more cumbersome this type of behavior becomes. The larger the countryside, the more likely the people are going to be using small talk to break the ice.
A lot of life is dealing with things that are a PITA, and there are advantages in developing skill dealing with them. Develop a strategy, practice. Lots of books and articles about this.
In this particular case, for some it’s a PITA and for some a pleasure in life or at least something they seek out.
That unbalance is the interesting part I think, just like so many things in life where changing perspective is needed to deal with people.
About books and articles...It’s another topic, but I don’t know, I find a lot of these have a “how to fix your personality” angle that is just innapropriate and/or unproductive. Becoming an extravert or small talk guru shouldn’t be the goal.
And, as you say, developping strategies to have less people noise and more mindful communication is usually so personal, while not being that hard, that it’s not a very good subject for a self help book.
Sometimes in Finland you see people from countries like USA talking with each other endlessly and often quite loudly. Many of us Finns find it annoying as it is against local customs (it resembles situation where somebody comes too close to my personal space). This constant chit-chat prevents me concentrating on my own thoughts. I wouldn't mind if they would talk about some important things or keep their chit-chat short, but I don't want to be exposed to this kind of noise about trivial things for hours.
The constant chit-chat is at the surface of this phenomenon, it's the general hyperactivity of Americans that strikes me as an eastern European. Always moving around restlessly while holding a drink, overacting and commenting after any kind of trivial situation around them, something that most people would not care about at all.
I call those people annoying. I was born and raised and have lived my entire life in the US. I'm quiet, still, and prefer the same in the people around me. You can't assess over 300 million people by the few who can afford to travel.
One issue is that we generally notice the loud obnoxious stereotype, and there are enough Americans that fit that mould.
And perhaps you are discounting that many people make their own judgement call based on the interactions they have had with Americans.
I am not sure it has much to do with tourists per se. On the gripping hand, I am in Palma de Mallorca at the moment, which many Europeans travel to for the beach and party life: there are some definite stereotypes for the Poms and the Germans!
Every visitor faces bigotry, some fair, some unfair.
American's can get plenty of positive reaction too. At least most people have some idea about your country and customs from watching movies: try coming from a third world nation...
But also there are a lot of Finns who seem to enjoy having loud phone-calls of their own, whilst sat next to you on the tram/bus. I find that more annoying to be honest.
It looks like I would love to live in Finland! I'm always annoyed by passengers in the bus talking loudly while I try to read my book. This is very common. Commuters are very noisy in Turkey. Also I wonder if in Finland they announce stations in public transportation. Like "next station is blah blah..." Here in Turkey in big cities they even announce stations in Turkish and in English! So annoying.
This may be true. But it does not make sense to violate personal spaces of millions of people for the possibility that one blind person will be in the train. I never encountered a blind commuter but I'm sure they exist. In my country people would be extremely helpful and would tell them their stop and help them get out. To me clean and quiet public transportation is a sign of civilization.
People with disabilities prefer not to rely on other people if they can avoid it. Just like everybody else.
It's possible to train your consciousness to some degree and ignore noise. I find the times when I'm bothered by announcements to be the times I'm fuzzy anyway. I carry big headphones for such occasions :-)
> Many of us Finns find it annoying as it is against
> local customs (it resembles situation where somebody
> comes too close to my personal space). This constant
> chit-chat prevents me concentrating on my own thoughts.
> I wouldn't mind if they would talk about some important
> things or keep their chit-chat short, but I don't want
> to be exposed to this kind of noise about trivial
> things for hours.
Like fi358, I consider subjecting someone to unwanted noise to be same as violating their personal space by coming too close to them. To me recorded announcements that repeat and repeat mindlessly the same thing over and over again and serve no purpose is a violation of personal space.
> to make public transport easy to use for people with disabilities...
You are right of course. But someone in wheelchair and a blind person have different requirements. Where I live most busses can accommodate people with wheelchair. People also are extremely helpful to blind people. I see ordinary people helping blinds cross the street. So if a blind person boards a bus all he has to do is to tell his stop to the driver or to a passenger near him.
By the way, I see this topic as part of the fundamental human condition, that is, the neverending strife between the individual and his master, the legal organism.
Governments and their branches are legal organisms. These organisms exploit the individual. The individual has no power against his master.
In this case, the individual is the customer but he has no say about the quality of his commute. The legal organism in charge of transportation does not bother to ask its customers if they want recorded announcements of stations. The majority of the customers, probably over %90, take the same train everyday and know their stop by heart. They would get off in the right station in their sleep. They don’t need to be told where to get off. If the legal organism asked its customers if they want announcements, the majority would say "don't talk to us. Leave us alone. Let us read a book, sleep or daydream. Just don't bother us and don't try to be nice to us. Don’t make condescending announcements. Just shut up. Give us a clean, safe and fast ride and get out of the way.” But the master never asks its subjects and never listens. The individual accepts whatever the legal organism gives to him.
You may think that accepting the violation of your personal space by recorded announcements without protest is a trivial issue. But people who accept voluntarily trivial harrassments by their master will voluntarily accept big harassments. Like when the same organism will want to take his naked pictures while crossing its borders.
I love Finland. I love Oulu.
But, come on, there isn't just the 1 type of Finn.
And even the "silent' type (which I prefer) is very warm and outgoing when given space, sincerity and calm.
In fact, I found getting into a decent conversation and a good night out as a stranger in Finland is way easier than in may other places.
Norwegian living in the UK. I remember my dad when he moved over here just found the whole initial greetings and small talk with his UK colleagues really funny. And even funnier to watch his mostly Swedish colleagues struggle with the same tennis ball banter at the start of every conversation. Instead of just getting to the point straight away.
I was young enough to adapt quickly, but still I struggle with insincere greetings such as in some shops here now have US style greeters at the door. Find it hard to respond to their "Hi/Welcome/How are you" as I know they do not want a conversation, so why interfere with my personal space...
Small talk is a protocol. There is information exchange. Possibly the Finns are trying to out do the machine but even machines agree small talk is necessary :)
[0] In England everything is different. You must understand that when people say ‘England’, they sometimes mean ‘Great Britain’ (England, Scotland and Wales), sometimes ‘the United Kingdom’ (England Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), sometimes the ‘British Isles’ (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland) – but never just England.
In many situations, people benefit from working together. Skill at connecting with people accrues benefits to the persons with that skill. Of course, more simply, management wants:
• Visitors with unique needs or problems checked for;
• Visitors who prefer interaction made more likely to be repeat customers;
• Determination of employee skill level at interaction;
• A touch point for visitor questions or concerns;
• Business branded as being interested in their customers;
• Control over setting of social morays;
• etc. etc.
It's funny because often the stories about small talk in the US center on how vapid it is. People ask, "how are you," and most people are conditioned to say, "good, thanks" (or some variant) and leave it at that. Then you're trained to say, "and how are you?" and often it's the same reply. Then it's onto the weather, news, sports, or other topics. Despite that it's formulaic, as an American, it's comforting and within the norm.
It seems it exists p much everywhere in Europe, but I always understand it differently than the article implies. It's better to stay silent sometimes than to say something, because it can cause a conflict or hurt someone.
In Finland we sometimes ask how are you, especially if we know the person. However, it is usually meant to be a real question and not just empty phrase where "fine" is regarded as the only correct answer.
I'm so glad that recently on an interview with a foreign company, when I got asked "how are you?" at the beginning, it felt strange enough to remind me "just say 'fine' and be done with it" :D
Can't remember either, but your recollection is close to what mine is.
But given that Moff knows who/what Darth Vader is it is not supprising that he takes a subservient stance when talking to him. Kind of the same way i'm very careful around american cops. I would never address a norwegian cop by sir, but i don't even think twice before using sir/mam when talking to a us cop.
But in these cases its fear. It has nothing to do with pleasentries. It's the gun in the holster or the knowledge that he can forcechoke you if he wants to. ( at least thats my interpretation of that encounter in rotj ).
So no. I don't think they would say that in any normal encounter. I know i wouldn't other than in jest.
This makes sense - I'd assume "I know my place, don't hurt me" is a sentiment that arises in basically any culture as long as somebody involved has lots of power and no accountability.
I'm curious whether this would actually be odd for Finns?
Jerjerrod's line is phatic, but I think it's less small talk than deference or avoidance. The message is something like "I'm surprised and concerned someone with your status is involved in my work, please don't hurt me", which seems fairly universal.
In the film it's translated like they say in English, if I recall it right. But if it were from real life from after 1950-1960s (when people used the third person as a polite form, still happens but rare) the dialogue would be like this:
Darth Vader enters.
Moff stops what he is doing, turns toward Vader and looks at him. Nothing is said, it is obvious to both that this is a surprise for Moff. There is a pause. Moff is waiting for Vader to indicate the purpose of this visit. It goes without saying that there is some purpose or Vader would not be here as he does not make courtesy calls; if he did, he would probably have brought a bouquet of flowers or a bottle of wine or such. If Vader would not say anything for a longer time, Moff would ask. But here Vader says: "I am here to put you back on schedule".
Moff nods. Or at most says "Understood/OK". If Moff does not agree with the assessment that he is late, then he could start negotiating the issue, but as I recall from the film, he was aware of being late, so what is the point of arguing a fact.
In an older time, I think Moff would have said "Lord Vader" to acknowledge him. Otherwise the dialogue would have gone more or less as above.
Finns know that phrase. Just like Americans know the words "your majesty" despite not having any royals.
Finns use it exactly in same way as American would say "your majesty". It would likely be a sarcastic remark coming from a Finn. So the meaning is not that far off.
Yeah, but even then I assume they would want a deeper translation that made the scene more natural to Finns -- where the Moff wouldn't say something that looks like small talk, nor have Vader recognize something as being "pleasantries". Like, have the Moff immediately get to giving status reports, and then have Vader respond with disbelief and say he's behind schedule.
In Greek, we might say "skip the formality". I don't think there's a word for "pleasantries", per se. There's also no superficial small talk here, although we do have the "hey, how are you? Good, and you? Good" greeting.
I have trouble making small talk but I enjoy listening to it. I genuinely enjoy listening to what's going on in people's lives, even if it's not very exciting. I try to remember things people say and ask about it next time. I find it better than just generic questions. People seem to enjoy talking about themselves and i've found it goes a long way just caring and remembering a little bit the little things going on in people's lives.
Conversely I find when I do mention little things in small talk with people they actually tend to remember more than I think they will. Not everyone, but there's definitely people that do and it does feel nice.
We do that for small talk in Holland mostly. run into your neighbour? 'ooh, the weather!' 'quite!' and move on :)
Actually, it is mostly complaining about it. too hot, too wet, too dry... And all while it is mostly excruciatingly mild compared to places with real weather :P
I'm married to a Finn woman and I have lived in Helsinki for about 3 years.
The lack of small talk is the norm in Finland, and, as a south-european, it takes a while to get used to.
The article doesn't mention that there is a noticeable difference between boys and girls though. My experience is that girls are much more willing to engage in small talk in social situations.
Men, including colleagues, can be really difficult to crack. Some men really open up only when alcol is involved - another aspect of Finnish society that the article overlooked.
I was in Helsinki two years ago and loved every minute of it. I said to an American friend at the time, "I don't know why, but this is a great city to think in."
This article helps explain it — there's less idle conversation, yes, but when conversing, it's actually much easier and straightforward to talk about deep and interesting things. And if you want to be quiet and just think, people are cool with that too.
It's really a lovely place. Very clean and beautiful, too. Very much worth visiting.
A bit off topic, but one of the movies I always found really interesting (without having any idea how much "realistic" it might or might not be) has been "The man wihout a past":
I first completely read this as "smalltalk" and was quite confused.
I'm quite bad at small talk but I try to 'force' it as it is seen as something common where I live. My wife usually does tell me that I'm bad at it if she happens to be with me.
I'm not sure why, there's just a lot of awkward pauses.
"But if you’re lucky, sometimes a stranger will instantly become a friend and tell you everything."
Damn! doesn't sound like luck to me ... and I'm far from Finnish. (At least I think so, even though I did once dive from sauna into ice-covered water.)
Small talk it's not just chit chat, it's also a social regulator, at least here in Argentina. It is used a cue of respect and interest but also of disregard and rejection.
How do the Finns cue interest in others, how do they cue rejection?
I visted Finland two summers ago. I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary in terms of friendliness or small-talk. I mostly visited bigger cities though.
I love Scandinavian countries for that specific reason. People don't care about you but they will help you if you really need anything and relationships are very strong and take years to come. Here in Greece for example relationships are fake and fade from day one. You met a guy on Monday and on Friday you get an invitation to his house BUT the next Monday they pretend they haven't met you. Too much socialization leads to sociopathic disorders.
> “Laura,” she told me matter-of-factly when I asked why we had bonded so quickly, “The Finnish don’t believe in talking bullshit.”
I believe this is characterizing the sentiment of the article much better than what the title conveys. In my experience there are different types of small talk. The infamous kind found in the US is not the only definition of small talk. In many cultures small talk simply means talking without getting too personal - in the US this seems to be accomplished by exchanging what the Finnish girl refers to as "bullshit".
> With two million saunas in the country, which are enjoyed fully nude (generally gender-segregated, although that rule tends to be thrown out in the company of friends), the Finnish seem to have no problem with getting up close and personal. But when clothes are on, the bets are off.
Also an exaggeration in my experience. You can very well talk to strangers in Finland. Just that talking too shallow stuff is maybe not that popular.
> Thanks to television and films (which are mostly broadcast in English) she was already acquainted with non-Finnish communication styles.
That is such a dumb and sad thing to say. I really love the downtoearth friendliness of Finnish people. There is really no need to educate them - and certainly not by means of television.
> When asked for an example of how she wishes Finnish society were more open,
Now we go from talking less to a claim that Finnish society should be more open. It couldn't be further from the truth. If you have been to Helsinki you will have noticed that the society is super open and embracing refugees as well as people with handicaps. Almost everything is accessible to blind people or those using a wheelchair.
> There are more hypotheses than answers for why Finnish culture has a veil of silence permanently stitched in place.
And that is a good thing. Silence and the ability to maintain silence when there is no need for attention seeking behavior is such an important thing. It's awesome.
> “When I was [back] in Finland, I was almost offended when I went to get a cup of coffee from a coffee shop and they didn’t say anything,” he recalled. “It was just ‘what do you want?’. How can you say that? Are you not going to ask anything before that? Oh, yeah. This is my home country. This is just the way things are.
That is just half of the truth. They just won't pretend to be your super-nice new friend like it can be observed in Starbucks for example. But they will be actually very friendly.
In no country I have been treated consistently exceptionally friendly by customer serive in shops or bars than in Finland / Helskinki. It's absolutely stunning how authentically friendly Finnish people are.
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I would rather tend to label typical Finnish communication as "healthy" - and there is a simple reason for it being like that. Finnish society itself is super healthy - just take a day-trip to Helsinki and you will feel it immediatly that Finland is doing something very right with regards to equality in the society and presence of culture.
This sounds a lot like the Greek culture, and I always find it a bit uncomfortable to engage in smalltalk when I travel to a country that does it. It's a very specific type of smalltalk, like what you'd do at a bus stop or at a house party, where you're just talking to the other person superficially without any intent to continue any sort of relationship after you've gotten to know them a bit.
I can't explain it very well, but smalltalk is talking to just pass the time until something else happens. We tend to think of talking to someone as a bit more meaningful, and meant to create or deepen a relationship, so if we know that we're never going to see someone again, we tend to just not make an effort to talk to them.
Your point about the "super-nice new friend" rings especially true, as that's what I find most uncomfortable. It just seems extremely fake, and that's not to say there aren't friendly people in the US, it's just that specific interaction where they're being fake-super-friendly as part of a transaction or business relationship.
> Only almost formal, exceedingly polite and necessary conversations are part of the social norm
This does not describe Finland at all. If you go to a convenience store in Japan and buy a pack of gum, the clerk will go through an elaborate script of welcoming you to the store, reciting how much your purchase costs, how much cash they receive from you, how much change they give you in return, and thanking you for your custom. In Finland, more likely than not you can complete exactly the same transaction without either party saying a word (except maybe the clerk telling you the total).
Yeah the receipt thing is a little surprising, as a foreigner. Literally everybody reads out the total, and asks if you want one. Most of the time I say no, but sometimes I want one.
I started to feel a bit more relaxed when I could go to the corner-shop and buy food without having to understand much Finnish, and the constant repetition helped me learn my numbers.
(Now and again a staff-member will confuse me by asking "Would you like anything else?" or "Is that all?" which throws me off. The only other questions I expect to be asked are "Would you like a bag?" or "Do you have a store-card?".)
I think it is a little different than smalltalk. When people smalltalk, no matter how shallow the conversation is, there is still an intention to “get to know” with each other. But in the cashier example, the cashier does not have any goal to forge a relationship with the customer, but will repeat the same thing over and over because that’s what they’re told to do in the manuals.
No. Small talk is, by definition, incidental to the functional, "business" parts of the transaction. It excludes things like: "Your total is $X". "Out of the $Y you gave me, your change is ..." -- i.e., the things the GP was describing in Japan.
Edit: "Welcome to the store [some mini sales pitch]" might count as small talk, but is not what most people have in mind.
The difference would be that it’s one sided, there is no expectation of response.
It’s so funny when sometimes the clerk has been doing it that job so long that it’s not proper words anymore and you’re not even expected to parse it correctly, it just doesn’t matter.
It's not even a formality, the response is mostly automated. They are taught to do this but after a while it just becomes something they say without thinking much. Part of it is so the boss is happy. If the boss sees employee not following the script they can get some serious talking.
Bingo, they have a strict script which they stick to, and they has been trained for that. But I don't think that's what the grandparent was trying to say. He was trying to say that you don't get those kinds for "formalities" in Finland.
We're all generalizing in the extreme here, obviously, but having lived in both the East and the West, my observation would be that in Asian societies people are much less comfortable talking to strangers, and the script exists to facilitate interaction that otherwise simply wouldn't occur.
In Norway cashiers have to recite much of that (and ask if you want a receipt) due to regulations. So I wonder how much of 'custom' is that really in Japan too.
My French-teacher in Norway told me this story as a way of relating how terse Norwegians tended to be relative to the French. She insisted it was about someone she knew, but I have no idea if it's true:
A Norwegian husband took his French wife to live in Norway. She was at home while he went to work, and after a few months he invited another couple home to dinner. Most of the conversation happened in French or English as she had not yet picked up much Norwegian, but when leaving, she wanted to try.
After they left, the husband asked her "why did you say 'pose' when they were leaving?" She asked if she'd gotten it wrong - it was what the cashiers always said as she was leaving the shop, so she'd assumed it was "goodbye". (for the non-Norwegians: 'pose' means bag, as in a shopping bag; they were asking if she wanted one) The idea that a one word utterance as she was leaving could be an insignificant question rather than wishing her good bye had not crossed her mind.
Thank you for this - I got quite a giggle. I'm living in Norway and am from the states, and I sometimes do weird stuff like that. Lots of laughs from stuff like that, and I'm quite happy the spouse is Norwegian to laugh and explain that stuff.
Cashiers almost always say hi to you in Finland. Then they list the price, then usually ask if you want a receipt, then say thanks. It's pretty rare for them to deviate from the script.
A similar kind of formality used to be a thing in Western culture, at least up until the 1980s.
Watch any kind of TV show from back then and notice the formality in the clothing of presenters, the substantially more discernible pronunciation, the vocabulary. The cultural shift towards informality is a recent trend in the West.
One should be careful basing observations on what is shown on TV. As an extreme example, it would suggest that most couples did not sleep on the same bed during the 1950s.
> The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent,[1][2][3] is a consciously acquired accent of English, intended to blend together the "standard" speech of both American English and British Received Pronunciation. Spoken mostly in the early 20th century by Americans, it is not a vernacular American accent native to any location, but rather, according to voice and drama professor Dudley Knight, an affected set of speech patterns whose "chief quality was that no Americans actually spoke it unless educated to do so".[4] The accent is, therefore, best associated with the American upper class, theater, and film industry of the 1930s and 1940s,[5] largely taught in private independent preparatory schools especially in the American Northeast and in acting schools.[6] The accent's overall use sharply declined following the Second World War.
On the UK side of the Atlantic, the Received Pronunciation was considered the appropriate form of English in BBC broadcasts, leading to "BBC English", which again reflected upper class use. As I recall, it wasn't until the 1980s when BBC announcers were more free to use regional dialects.
So when you view history through TV, remember that you are also seeing it through a upper-class lens.
That's true although professional dress is definitely more casual in the US (for the most part) than it was 20-30 years ago. When I started with a tech company in the mid-80s, suits were pretty much the norm for marketing and sales and even many in engineering. It would have been strange for the most part to, say, give a presentation at a conference without being dressed that way.
These days, in tech certainly but across many industries, "dressing up" is mostly an outlier.
I can remember my dad in the late 80s early 90s wearing a suit as an EE. Slowly it changed from suit to shirt and tie to no tie. Now it’s polo and jeans.
Many companies are trying to emulate west coast tech companies. Especially Silicon Valley. I’ve seen a lot of initiatives geared toward “millennials” in a couple big companies I worked at. Including getting rid of the khaki business casual.
I didn’t know what small talk was until I went to study abroad. Most of my foreign classmates often asked me things like ”how are you doing?” etc. and when I literally answered them what I had been up to recently they were very confused.
”Dude...no need to tell your life story, just say ’good’ and that’s it”
I replied ”Why do you ask a question if you don’t care about the answer?”
I learned the hard way, but learned still. :D