| "They knew of my miscarriage" So there appears to be a misunderstanding here. The enthousiastic-seeming politeness of one culture has accidentally convinced someone from a different culture that there was more emotional connection than there really was. Just don't fall for it. It's mostly for show. Excessive politeness at a mass cultural level like that is simply an obligation. But this teacher doesn't understand that and, perhaps being a little more prone than average even in her own culture to forming emotional attachments with students, is misunderstanding what is happening. Imagine you walk into one of those restaurants where people are super enthousiastic about you, with big hellos and showy gestures and maybe even some singing. But it doesn't mean you've formed a deep emotional bond with them. It's for show, that's just their baseline. People everywhere in the world only have so much emotional bandwidth for strangers, but the difference in default displayed politeness level might make for some misunderstandings between cultures. |