
Why Russians Are Not Smiling (2011) - mhb
http://blog.properrussian.com/2011/05/why-russians-are-not-smiling.html
======
blah32497
As a Russian-American this comes off as complete BS. I've seen this written
before and it's always in the form of "It's not us that smile too little, it's
you Americans that are fake and smile too much!".

For one, Americans don't just smile to be polite. For the most part it's
genuinely conveying positive emotions.

Now I know this is going to be unpopular, but I think the real reason Russians
don't smile is cultural. It's because they are genuinely more cynical
miserable people. This is completely a generalization and there are tons of
exceptions on an individual level, but _on average_ life (especially in the
cities) is more cut throat, it's cold, the authorities are corrupt, people are
asshole to each other in public, and if anything goes wrong you can be darn
well be sure that no one will help you[1]. There is no sense of community, or
impulse for people to help each other out and being nice to strangers. So
naturally you're worried you'll get robbed or whatever - so you keep to
yourself, don't make eye-contact, and don't smile.

If you go to the country side, people are a lot more likely to smile at you.

A bit of an aside - I've found it's also a very Slavic thing. Prague had very
similar miserable faces, which Budapest was full of smiles (though
economically the countries were very similar)

[1] I remember a story my friend told me of how he was on the subway and a
bunch of skinheads beat up an African college student. After they left, no one
did anything to help the kid, and everyone just pretended like nothing
happened. A good ol' "it's non of my business" attitude.

~~~
zeteo
> this comes off as complete BS. I've seen this written before and it's always
> in the form of "It's not us that smile too little, it's you Americans that
> are fake and smile too much!"

Which is pretty much what the article quotes Russians as saying. Without
agreeing with them, of course.

>I think the real reason Russians don't smile is cultural.

Again, you're agreeing with the article - and contradicting your subsequent
explanation, which is mainly economic and judicial.

>It's because [Russians] are genuinely more cynical miserable people.

How is this is any better than some Russians' generalization that smiling
Westerners are duplicitous?

~~~
crusso
No, the article is claiming that to Westerners a smile is neutral and that to
a Russian no smile is neutral. The article is making the implication that a
smiling Westerner and a non-smiling Russian are expressing the same emotion,
it's just that the Westerner is faking something.

The poster to whom you're responding is actually saying that the no smile in
Russia is because of an actual underlying difference in the emotions being
felt.

~~~
zeteo
>the article is claiming that to Westerners a smile is neutral [...] The
article is making the implication that a smiling Westerner [...] is faking
something.

I don't see where you got the second sentence as the article's implication.
Especially since it's rather contradictory with the first sentence.

~~~
crusso
I'm trying to see how you find those statements to be contradictory.

Maybe you think that the same concept is being discussed in the two sentences?
Really there are multiple concepts at play so calling one of them neutral
relative to one another and the other one "fake" isn't a contradiction at all.
They're different things.

Just because the emotion being expressed is supposed to be neutral doesn't
mean that the facial expression can't be implying something more. The article
author's contention is that the facial expression is fake and expressing more
of an emotion than is present, given that the "real" underlying emotion is one
of neutrality in the smile and no-smile cases.

------
softbuilder
I worked with some Russians a few years ago. Great guys. One wasn't very well
adapted to American culture. He came to my cube one day. He's like "Let's go
get a smoke", but his face and tone was flat, so it came across as "You've
pissed me off in some way and I'm probably going to kick your ass now". I
demurred. A couple more offers over the next few days and I finally relented
(I don't smoke, but went to hang out). Pretty soon he was smiling and cracking
jokes. A few months later he asked me, "Why do Americans always have to act
happy? It's so fake."

*edit: I a word

~~~
zerr
I'm not Russian, but when somebody's smile is too artificial/fake - I call it
American smile. I think it is quite a common term [in Europe] ;)

~~~
kosoy
Hmm, I think you mixed it up a bit. "American smile" is just a smile done
primarily with lip muscles that shows teeth prominently.

~~~
zerr
Actually, yes. There can be other types of fake smiles as well :)

------
austenallred
I served a Mormon mission in eastern Ukraine (not Russia, but very Soviet),
which meant I went from one day being surrounded by Americans to walking
around the streets of eastern Ukraine trying to talk with everyone I met on
the street (a decidedly non-Ukrainian thing to do).

One day while we were walking the sun came out for just a minute - a fairly
rare occurrence during a Ukrainian winter, and I walked around the streets
beaming. When I started talking to a man, he stopped mid-sentence and said,
"Are you high?"

I figured what he was saying was in regard to our talking about the Bible (he
certainly wouldn't have been the first to ask that question with regard to
religious belief), but he _legitimately_ thought I was high. He went on to say
(I paraphrase), "You're just walking around the streets talking with people,
seemingly fascinated by anything I talk about, and with a big grin (усмешка)
on your face. That's not normal."

And, to be fair, it was pretty rare that I was in such a mood.

If you think about it, the smile that Americans force a lot of the time is
very fake. Think about families smiling in their pictures - they look vaguely
happy, but there's a noticeable difference between that and when you can see a
genuine smile. If you're a Russian, why pretend? And while I still smile in
pictures, I can see their point.

When I got back to the US after having been in eastern Ukraine for two years,
I got the opposite reaction. "Are you depressed?" or "Are you doing OK?" While
living in Ukraine had been a culture shock and forced me to see the world
quite differently than growing up in small-town Utah suburbia, I was by no
means depressed. I just held myself in a different way. I also spoke more with
exaggerated hand motions, had different intonation, and was shocked at how I
could give a $100 bill to a cashier at the grocery store without getting in
trouble.

~~~
kutakbash
You mean people in America don't feel this way about street preachers? Even
the kind that walks around with a sign and shouts REPENT! and all?

> I could give a $100 bill to a cashier at the grocery store without getting
> in trouble.

You mean you literally handed her a 100 dollar bill? That's not her fault, you
should exchange your money. Imagine someone trying to pay with hrivnas in
7-11.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
>You mean people in America don't feel this way about street preachers? Even
the kind that walks around with a sign and shouts REPENT! and all?

Yes of course we/they do. Street preachers are obnoxious as all hell,
_especially_ for people with preexisting religious beliefs.

------
mrjj
Hi, i'm Russian sociologist of culture.

The conclusion about different culture code and semantic is right.

But there is more some interesting things. Russians have really poor
toothcare, and this is joined with non-smiling bidirectionally. There is
nothing abnormal for Russian to have couple of missing teeth. I've seen a
really rich people (for example owner of Rolls Royce fleet) with just a couple
of yellow teeth left... man, you should never smile with this.

Also there is a lot of mimic signals except mouth area muscles tension,
especially orbicularis oculi tension, that subconsciously telling that we are
smiling. I've noticed that this secondary features is also less often for
Russians relative to west and east Europeans. This is also true for voice tone
and other subconscious traces of smile. So the low-level mental trigger for
smile not firing at all.

So i can assert that this is not about smiling, its about more deep
communicational norms like, literally, answering "sorely" on "how are u?",
that means "i'm complaining so i'm sincere to you and trusting you", the
essence of social stroking is different. Yip, assumptions that the Russians is
same in everything but the culture codes is wrong, we are pretty depressed
nation.

Anyway, i see that norm is changing nowadays along with life quality
increasing, European culture codes expansion, and toothcare, heh.

~~~
cLeEOGPw
Hi, I'm from Lithuania, where people are smiling (or not smiling) in the exact
same way as described in the article. I can assure you that teeth has
absolutely nothing to do with this. Same goes for your missing muscle theory,
absolute nonsense. It seems like you think people are way more conscious about
smiling than they really are. I could not care less about my tooth when
"deciding" whether to smile or not. It's not very conscious decision after
all.

~~~
mrjj
I just mention tooth like interesting side factor. Surely it's not the main
reason, but may be a consequence supporting the reason. And surely there is no
nations that, holding their smiles just because of their tooth not glowing in
the dark.

Maybe you confused with the mentioning teeth by itself, but its normal for
cultural anthropology to try taking physiology, language, healthcare e.t.c as
a whole if it giving any clues.

Talking about conscious we should consider that it is one of the reflexes
"tamed" by human. Reflexes have its own specific muscle tension/relaxing
patterns. You can see reflexes in clean form when looking on babies. Than
human learning some communication norms and codes just imitating what it see
around. Than he can use trained gestures, sounds e.t.c unconsciously, just
little cortex fire and we performing it. We can train to suppress reflexes
this way.

Imagine, we have salute gesture like scratching a nose. The muscle tension and
motional pattern will be a little different from the case we really have an
itchy nose.

Or you have a cough or just imitating cough sound. It's easy to separate. But
if you spent time training imitate cough naturally it will look and sound
naturally.

So we can differ several cases: Human smiling but suppressing it. Human
smiling or well trained or self-trained to smile "sincerely". Human imitating
smile of request.

And i behold that Russians: imitate smile on request very rough and this mean
deficient practice of imitation. have suppressed smile relatively as often as
other ones. smile noticeable rarely.

So we really have rare-firing reflex. What the reason? This is separate and
interesting question.

~~~
cLeEOGPw
What do you mean "on request"? Because if someone asked me to fake a smile I
would not even try to look sincere either. Deficient practice in imitation can
be considered when a person actually wants to look like he's smiling
sincerely, but for us it is the opposite. And we don't "suppress" smile - we
do not feel any need to smile for random strangers. Unless you want to look
offensive. Especially fake smile. Fake smile is mostly used by people who want
something from you and are willing to be very annoying about it - usually want
something bad to sell or somehow screw you over. I have no idea why are you
coming up with those ridiculous theories about reflexes when there are very
good reasons not to smile and not to fake smile to random people, and to smile
to friends.

------
sz4kerto
I can somewhat agree as an Eastern-European. When I started to work for US/UK
companies, I had to learn a lot about adaptation and interpreting the
different signal set.

The funny thing is that many (big) companies say that they're pro-diversity,
they like and must have people from different cultures while in reality it's
99% about other cultures adapting to them. For somebody from Europe that's not
that hard, but people from Asia usually find it much more difficult. And
they're sometimes perceived as not smart/ignorant while they're just used to
different kind of communication. We (technology workers from in Hungary or
EEU) are usually perceived (in the eyes of US/UK citizens) as direct, honest,
straightforward but sometimes very unpolite persons, while in reality we are
just used to different gestures.

------
grecy
Living in far Northern Canada I can relate to this.

Up here, if someone wants to smile and say "Have a nice day", they will do so
while making eye contact and you can tell they genuinely mean it. They are
usually prompting you for further friendly chit-chat and happiness. Even when
there are other customers waiting in line - those customers will be made to
wait while two people have a friendly chat.

When they don't want to say "Have a nice day", they won't. Likely they won't
say anything at all or kind of grunt/mumble and just move along (even in
retail) - but at least you know they're being genuine either way.

Last time I went back to "the real world" I was shocked time and time again
when someone would say "Have a nice day" \- I'd start to return the sentiment
and be utterly disgusted the person wasn't even looking at me, and wasn't even
paying attention to me. It all felt so fake, and I was quickly tired of it.

Lots of business up here have a little sign in their shop "Yukon hospitality -
it grows on you".

I genuinely wonder if the climate has something to do with this. Extreme cold
and very dark days tend to bring people together, and tends to make people
more genuine and humble, in my experience.

~~~
geoka9
> I genuinely wonder if the climate has something to do with this. Extreme
> cold and very dark days tend to bring people together, and tends to make
> people more genuine and humble, in my experience.

I don't think it's the climate, at least it's not the sole reason. After all,
Russia is a huge country and Russians live all over it - from Siberia to the
Russian Black Sea coast with its subtropical climate.

I suspect it has to do with the average hardship of life and, at least with
Russia, major social and economic upheavals that happen often enough for every
generation of Russians to be affected.

> Extreme cold and very dark days tend to bring people together

Also, this is probably the last thing that comes to mind about Russians in
general. For the most part, they are notoriously individualistic.

~~~
oddx
> Also, this is probably the last thing that comes to mind about Russians in
> general. For the most part, they are notoriously individualistic.

You understand "individualistic" in some specific (probably american) way.
Russians may look individualistic if you don't know them well, but actually in
Russia close friends and family means much more then in US.

~~~
geoka9
> You understand "individualistic" in some specific (probably american) way.

No, I meant individualistic in a "mostly devoid of the sense of social
responsibility" way. In fact, it's a common meme in Russia to lament the lack
of a sense of unity pervasive in the culture (the closeness of family/friends
notwithstanding) .

~~~
oddx
In this definition yes, modern Russian people are individualists. But in sense
> Extreme cold and very dark days tend to bring people together That is in the
sense of small close group they are more collectivists than many of western
countries.

------
nostromo
There's really no need to be stingy with your smile.

If you smile more often at work, even if there's nothing specific to be happy
about, it really does lighten up the mood and make people cheerier. People
will want to work with you more.

Also, I hope I don't sound like a sociopath here, but smiles are a form of
brain hacking. If they are genuine, or at least seem genuine, they disarm
people and make them more receptive to you. Also, I've heard that it's a way
of hacking your own brain, to make yourself happier than you would otherwise
be, just by smiling.

One of the easiest things you can do to give better presentations is to learn
to genuinely smile while giving them. Not all the time, but a smile peppered
here or there. This works wonders on investors.

~~~
bowlofpetunias
To be perfectly honest, and I'm not trying to be personally aggressive here,
that kind of behavior makes me want to punch people in the face.

A smile is an involuntary response. Unless you are a really, really good actor
with full control over ever muscle in your body, people will spot a fake smile
("if there's nothing specific to be happy about") from a mile away. It's not
even a conscious thing, human body language is a way more complex symphony
than just curling your lips a bit.

And in cultures in which artificial smiling is not a common thing that is seen
as patronizing at best, and insulting at worst.

So unless you are in a country like the US, where people are used to such
behavior, I would go easy on the "brain hacking".

~~~
nostromo
I'm with you. I'm not a proponent of fake smiling.

Another way to think about it: try and be more like the Dalai Lama. Notice how
he's often smiling? Notice how when he greets strangers, he takes a genuine
interest in their well being?

You may want to punch Tony Robbins in the face, but I doubt you want to punch
the Dalai Lama in the face.

That's the goal I think. Not to brain hack by fake smiling, but to brain hack
by practicing real empathy and finding inner happiness.

------
bowlofpetunias
It's interesting how an article like this provokes multiple reactions that
come down to "the American way is the right way".

Also, unlike the article suggests, I think Russians are closer to (fellow!)
Europeans than Americans in this respect. The way the Russians described in
this article perceive Americans is not that different from the way most
Europeans do.

~~~
ryanackley
I'm not really picking that up from the comments. Most of the discussion I see
is debating the root causes and/or the validity of sweeping generalizations of
different societies.

~~~
bowlofpetunias
I read several comments in support of smiling as a universal form of
politeness, which in itself is a sweeping generalisation that doesn't
acknowledge cultural differences.

BTW, I'm not pissing on Americans, in my experience Americans are generally
considerably more polite, friendly and open than most other Westerners. But
the way that is expressed is not a universal language, which tends to lead to
misunderstandings.

------
wonderzombie
That said, the Russian humor page for Wikipedia is can be a real treat:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_jokes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_jokes).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_jokes#The_Golden_Fish](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_jokes#The_Golden_Fish)
may be one of my favorites on there.

A Russian friend of mine explained that it's sort of inappropriate to go
around smiling, esp for males. There's also kind of a cultural thing going on
where Russians perceive themselves as being able to screw up almost any
situation. It seems there's a lot of black/gallows humor oriented around this
bleak outlook.

~~~
cLeEOGPw
> A Russian friend of mine explained that it's sort of inappropriate to go
> around smiling, esp for males.

This is very true. If a male is smiling, it means he is showing his submission
and in turn is subconsciously treated by other males as a lower level male.
The exact system of hierarchy signs exists in chimps. For me it seems like
russians together with some other cultures managed to save this body language
component as meaningful way of interaction, in contrast with western way of
smiling meaning level zero relationship. Because if you truly can not tell
fake smile from real one, the meaning of a smile is lost. That's why I also am
not going to ever accept "always smiling" thing, even if I would go to live in
western country. A smile should be a sign of affection, not a sign of neutral
stance. We have neutral face impression for that. And if you interpret neutral
face impression as "something wrong", what are you using "worried" face
impression? It just seems wrong to always smile, even considering "brain
hacking" thing.

~~~
RogerL
Why are you assuming that we can not tell the difference between smiles?
There's a huge gradation of social behavior w.r.t smiles and other social cues
that we use in the west. For us, raised in the culture, it is trivially easy
to tell the difference between, say, the smile of a shopkeeper in greeting,
the smile of an enemy, the smile of a shopkeeper after asking after your
parent (they slightly know you), the smile of the mail man you speak with once
a week or so, the smile of the semi-acquaintance that lives one flight up, the
smile of a friend you see each day, and the smile of a best friend when
reuniting after a long absence. so on. They are all different, and constitute
a "meaningful way of interaction". It's just different than your way.

~~~
cLeEOGPw
So it's just the same things expressed differently, just like different body
language.

------
seldo
My parents, who live in Trinidad, have this problem every time they visit me
in America. After a couple of days of everyone fake-smiling at them the whole
time they get pissed off. To them, everyone's smiles come off as insincere and
even slightly condescending. (They hate it even more when people tell them to
"have a nice day".)

~~~
yason
Of course. Many Finnish people are like that too. If I can't think of _a
single reason myself why_ that unknown person might be smiling at me then I
must conclude s/he's just pretending to be friendly and probably trying
something, too. Thus, smiling must have a context: friends smile to each other
and that's all right because they're already friends, and friends like each
other.

~~~
bemmu
I'm Finnish too and feel the same way. If someone smiles and acts too friendly
when I don't know them well, I feel like they may be trying to manipulate me
in some way. After living abroad for a while I am starting to see that it's
just the default way to act, but being unsure when someone is genuinely
enjoying my company vs. just trying to act polite still makes me feel uneasy.

------
anton_gogolev
Spot on (yeah, I'm "russki")

Russians do like to laugh, though. We don't have as much stand-up comedians as
Americans do (and skits by the one we do have are very low-brow), but a
related genre of satire is quite popular among performers and listeners alike.
Not sure if Jvanetsky's performances are available in English, but for those
studying Russian I'd highly recommend listening to those.

~~~
free652
I think they are plenty of stand up comedians in Russia, but with any humor
it's all Russian/Soviet specific.

KVN is similar to SNL.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KVN](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KVN)

------
fasouto
Relevant: The grumpy Russian traveler
[http://imgur.com/a/4ix4I](http://imgur.com/a/4ix4I)

~~~
romanovcode
There is some backstory to these pictures. At least there was on Reddit when
it was first posted, can't prove that it's true or not.

Anyway, his wife died and he is visiting all the places she/they went and
making pictures to close himself of her.

~~~
xentronium
[http://lenta.ru/articles/2013/02/28/grumpy/](http://lenta.ru/articles/2013/02/28/grumpy/)
interview with the guy, if you can read Russian (he's from Belarus, by the
way). Doesn't seem there is any real back story to it actually.

~~~
dennisgorelik
He's only 32 years old. He looks like he's pushing 40.

------
iM8t
We (Latvians) are actually really similar to Russians in this matter. We
generally don't smile and if there's someone walking down the street with a
big smile on his face - the first thing that comes to mind is: "He must be a
tourist."

~~~
colkassad
Labdien. You are not kidding. I lived in Riga for two years and can attest to
this. Latvians had a funny sense of humor though. I once heard a joke about
teaching an Estonian the proper way to address a woman in Latvian, something
like "Skaistas kājas"? Sorry if I got that wrong, it's been awhile.

------
elsurudo
I'd generalize this to (continental) Europeans, and it becomes more true the
further East you go. Being in Poland, I notice the same thing.

However, I did notice that New Yorkers are also closer to the "Russian" camp.
Not totally (especially when it comes to retail), but closer...

~~~
Theodores
Some years ago, whilst on holiday in the U.S.A., a smiling American summarized
my experience for me:

In San Francisco they ask you 'how's it going, man!', in Chicago they shout
'WHAT?' and in New York they don't even talk to you.

So it is a sliding scale of friendliness, from West to East.

~~~
aestra
Nah. I think it is because New York is our biggest city with 8 million people.
There are just too many people to sort through so nobody talks. You can't make
a generalization about the entire east coast based on NYC. In smaller places
if you are walking down the street and you pass a stranger most of the time
you smile at them and say hello.

~~~
cdi
This could also partially explain Russian unwillingness to smile. Most of
Russians were born and raised in relatively big cities, not in suburbia where
"friendliness to neighbor" cultural protocol makes sense. There are just too
many neighbors to be friendly with in Russia.

------
forgottenpaswrd
I would say it is the terrible weather, too cold in winter, too hot in summer.
It probably means something like "serious people are the rulers, because if
you do stupid crazy things you are dead" over thousands of years that forge a
culture.

Russia is so big, and yet so ugly. I took the transsiberian train and it was
so boring. In 40kms of Chile you see more than in 3000 of transsiberian. In
Winter there is no light, and no color(snow everywhere).

When you travel to places where the sun shines all year long you find that
everybody smiles so much. You go to Bali, Brazil, Cuba, Costa Rica, kenia,
Nigeria, all people smile all the time.

Boston, New York,Seattle, Germany, they are in the middle-upper scale of
seriousness. Miami, California, less serious.

~~~
underwater
Did you read the article?

~~~
forgottenpaswrd
Yes.

The article talks about the fact, I create an hypothesis about the reason.

When you travel the world you see there is a correspondence between
seriousness and weather. You go to Brasil and the South is way more serious
than the North. In Europe-North America it is the opposite, as they are in a
different hemisphere.

------
Aloisius
_When you see people smiling at you in the USA or Germany, it doesn 't mean
anything other than an overall neutral attitude toward you. A smile is a
“level zero” in communication_

I don't know about Germany, but in the US if someone is smiling at you, their
overall attitude is friendly, not neutral. And yes, that includes store
keepers and waiters of which there are plenty that keep a neutral expression
just like much of Europe.

There are certainly people in the US who fake smiles. They are not nearly as
common as you might think. Heck, research over the last 40 years has shown
that faking smiles can genuinely cause happiness.

------
foohbarbaz
Having spent 15 years in the US (I am Russian), now I am somewhat shocked when
I don't get a smile from a cashier in a store in, say, Billings, MT.

Navajos, who don't make eye contact or smile either also take some getting
used to now.

It's cultural, but Russia is a harsh place, so it goes deeper.

The part about people in the street not being helpful to each other is also
true.

Just watch those dash cam videos where people witness a horrible crash, drive
around and keep moving. You can die in the street and nobody might care. It's
cultural and it's not a good thing.

The mob mentality is also a lot stronger. Westerners are a lot more tolerant
to people being different or choosing their own way. It is in fact encouraged
to be different and individual. Russians on the other hand, have whole layers
of culture dedicated to making sure everybody is not sticking out of the crowd
and not being an individual.

------
Demiurge
As a Russian-American, I completely agree. Smiling has different semantics in
West and in Russia. On the other hand, I don't mind the 'fake' customer
service. I don't want people to be sincerely unhappy to do something for me. I
appreciate the effort of a waiter putting on a smile at the end of an 8 hour
shift, 10 minute before the restaurant closes.

------
zzzcpan
Russians do not teach their children to smile at people to be polite or for
any other reason, so smile only comes as a genuine emotion. But Americans do,
and not just smile, but also show teeth. I'm not sure why though, probably has
something to do with dental advertisements.

~~~
vadman
Which is unnatural when you think about it, showing teeth is interpreted by
most animals as a sign of aggression.

I remember reading that if you smile at strange kids (or dogs), don't show
your teeth, they'll get scared or agitated. Similarly, if you are e.g.
greeting a small child, squat so that you are eye level with them - kids (and
dogs) hate when somebody huge is hanging over them.

------
jlgreco
Combine this with the Finnish attitude towards smalltalk, and I think you'd
get the ideal sort of country for me.

~~~
at-fates-hands
So more like how people on the East Coast then?

~~~
jlgreco
Oh my no, people on the east coast put far to much effort into smalltalk and
smiling. The South is _infamously_ bad in that regard, more than any other
group of people that I know of, but nearly anywhere on the east coast puts too
much value in small talk or smiling for the sake of smiling for my tastes.
Even NYC.

The east coast is where I grew up, and where I got sick of people always
pretending to be happy and interested in other people. I prefer to keep it
sincere.

------
trustfundbaby
This is one thing I feel that black people struggle to adjust to in the
American workplace. Smiling to be neutral isn't nearly as common in Black
Culture in America. Along the lines of this article, it can actually make
people think you're kind of weird if you're in a typically black setting to
just smile for no reason.

This causes problems at work, as a neutral visage on a black person at a
typical workplace can easily be mistaken for annoyance (or be perceived as
threatening) [http://www.psmag.com/blogs/news-blog/black-male-
faces-3571/](http://www.psmag.com/blogs/news-blog/black-male-faces-3571/)

So you can either be yourself and risk coworkers avoiding you because they
think you're "angry" (especially if you're more quiet than other people) or
wear a smile that feels forced all the time to make your coworkers feel
comfortable, because they won't take the time to assess their own biases and
cut you the appropriate slack.

pretty unfortunate

------
aquadrop
Pretty accurate article. The main point is that smile is a base in USA, and
neutral is base here in Russia. But personal conversations (especially with
people you know) are full of smiling. And I don't think that's such a big
deal, actually.

P.S. I regularly see two people constantly smiling in the crowd. One is
slightly crazy and another one has mimic muscles trauma.

------
wil421
I have seen someone get fired at a restaurant I worked at because they were
always too overwhelmed to smile consistently. Perhaps Americans are forced to
smile at times but why would someone foreign take offense to that?

By the way he got directly fired because he wasnt smiling when he was walking
around. Dont you just love being employed in a Work at Will state.

~~~
gyepi
I was fired from a restaurant job (many years ago, in Alaska) becuase I "did
not smile enough". At the time, it seemed ironic because I was actually quite
efficient and smiling had not seemed to be a requirement for actually getting
things done.

------
yason
I can relate to the behaviour described in the article.

A smile is a signal, as is a frown. If you center your origin in the middle of
the scale, you can use a smile to signal positive things and a frown to signal
negative things. If you smile a lot you will move the origin: you're "always"
smiling so what do you do when you're really happy? Or if you're always
frowning what do you do when you're pissed off for real?

If the default signal is neutral, it's easy to give a little smile or a little
frown and have that convey a lot of meaning, conscious or subconscious. And
you still have reserves for the truly earth-shattering moments.

I'm not very qualified to comment on Americans but they do talk a lot. For
what I've observed they seem to smile and then express with words such things
that maybe someone from another culture could express with a slight change in
his facial expression.

------
mephi5t0
Russians also don't have a Halloween. On the question "Why don't you have such
a holiday?" we (Russian/Ukrainian/Other-Similar-Folks) answer - we don't
celebrate a walking dead holiday, because we make sure our dead are really
dead and stay dead _insert a smile here if we met before_

~~~
ivan78
Best comment. :-)

------
eshvk
I see a lot of comments about Russians being inherently miserable creatures,
the climate not being conducive to smiling and even bad dental work as
reasons. Let me give an example from another culture where smiling is risky:
India. When I first moved there, I quickly realized that people smile only at
those they know. Strange women don't smile at you for fear of inviting
harassment. Soon as a guy, you don't smile at anyone so as to not invade their
space.

When I first came to America, I realized that a lot of Americans had this
unique and amazing ability to blast you with a radiant smile and cheerily ask
after you. It is a meaningless social convention that can get annoying at
times. It is always intriguing to me when I travel abroad, how my cheery
attitude slowly dissipates and then how the readjustment happens when I come
back to America.

tl;dr: people are different.

------
camus2
you could write the same article for french people , it wouldnt make a
difference, We french wont fake smile like americans do,even in shops or cafés
, where waiters dont expect you to tip them anyway. It's just the french way,
and customers are used to it , as long as you are not "too" rude...

~~~
ternaryoperator
I've been to France dozens of time and once lived there for a year. I find the
French easy to engage with and generally courteous and friendly, unlike the
usual stereotype.

------
ddeck
Reminds me of the wikitravel article on Azerbaijan:

 _Don 't smile at an Azerbaijani in the street, because if you do they most
likely will not respond in kind and they will regard you as odd. Smiling in
Azerbaijan in public is not done and will be considered inappropriate. Smiling
is traditionally reserved for family and friends; smiling at a stranger
without addressing them, will be considered offensive, as they will either
think that you are making fun of them and there is something wrong with their
clothes or hair. Furthermore, an automatic "Western smile" (ie grinning) is
widely regarded as insincere, as in "You don't really mean it"._ [1]

[1]
[http://wikitravel.org/en/Azerbaijan#Other_things_to_watch_fo...](http://wikitravel.org/en/Azerbaijan#Other_things_to_watch_for)

------
dschiptsov
This is easy question. According to Tibetan tradition the hell (in general,
not these particular torturing hells) is a cold, dark place inhabited by
selfish, aggressive, angry, greedy beings.)

The crucial notion is that it is not a place created by some goods to punish
beings, but a condition, superimposed on the inhabitants by themselves
according to the law of karma. Hell, therefore, is not created, it is emerged
(as the whole reality).

In last 30 years or so Russia had undergo a radical transformation from almost
naive and ignorant communist country with uneducated working class population
into the most corrupted, degraded country in the world, leaving some African
extremes aside.

In Soviet times, for example, criminals were untouchable marginals, a society
inside a society, while nowadays, due to lack of any real economy and equality
before law, there is no more such distinction. Being successful cheater or
looter, uncaught thief is considered a virtue, and cheating and looting is the
only way to become a success in consumerist life.

Imagine millions of angry, puffy, sick drunk, pot-bellied Ostap Benders,
hating everyone and hated by everyone, trying to find any naive victim in a
society consisted of nothing but their own type.)

It could be easily seen abroad. When Russians meet on the street they avert
their gazes and put on that very characteristic face expression of a mix of
contempt, disgust and boredom. Each one of them cannot relax in a presence of
strangers, and without their usual dose of alcohol. That is why they are going
into extremes in drunken parties, especially in other countries.

These notions, of course, are stereotypes, but they caught correctly some
aspects of reality. Of course, there are younger generations, generation
anime, who aren't like that, but there are several lost generations in a row,
all these children of 90-th who now became to realize that life was spoiled
and that the world changing in a way in which they have no place to go.

It is difficult to smile with such mentality.)

~~~
oddx
I don't think it's significantly related with modern Russia/Soviets or any
recent events. You can found description of same behaviour made by Turgenev
(here for example, in russian, [http://european-book-
review.blogspot.com/2006/04/blog-post_1...](http://european-book-
review.blogspot.com/2006/04/blog-post_19.html)) in XIX century.

------
ivan78
Actually, Russians smile quite a lot. They are not smiling to strangers - the
article explains why. But this does not mean they are not smiling at all. Once
you become acquainted to the person, the smile becoming the natural part of
communication.

------
colkassad
When I first moved to eastern Europe I couldn't make friends at all. After a
few months I started to get really discouraged and somewhat depressed and
stopped trying to engage people. As soon as that happened, my social life did
a 180.

~~~
garenp
So as soon as you looked solemn/depressed on a regular basis, people started
flocking to you? :)

------
kylequest
Smiling there is more personal... and smiles are more valuable. And just like
with anything valuable or good if there's too much of it it looses its value
(a bit like money and inflation or recent startup valuations :-))

------
kosoy
It's very interesting how throughout the discussion the opposite behavior
(smiling as neutral line) is becoming localized to US/UK. Plus, Dale Carnegie
seems to have left a cultural mark on Americans comparable to that Confucius
left on Chinese ))

The funny thing - it's in the same way English (and by extension American)
people got rid of 2nd person singular pronoun ("thou"), and I find some of
underlying debate pretty much the same. "It's more convenient and you run no
risk of alienating someone with only the polite form left" on one side and
"yes, but with potentially impolite form gone you have no means to actually
express politeness" on the other.

The question is - does universality of polite behavior (smiling, using plural)
actually devalue it over time?

The answer, at least for me, is something similar to dieting + cheat day
dynamic - feel free to form a habit out of the healthier thing (method act
yourself by smiling) but maintain your baseline by exploring the opposite
(admit you're feeling bad today, look miserable when you feel miserable), if
it's around 10-to-1 healthy-to-opposite ratio.

American way gets the first part down, and directionally I think we Russians
should learn from that (in other words, we sure should smile for no reason
MORE), but the other extreme has its dangers as well. Stoic philosophy of
life, anyone?

------
bane
I found it funny that a German, often associated in the U.S. as a serious
humorless country, was curious about why Russians never smile.

I can attest though, having spent a little bit of time in the Russian interior
as a student that, at least to this American, Russians in public come across
as rude, cold distant and all that, but once a Russian gets to know you
(usually over some vodka and pickles) are almost unfailingly warm, kind and
generous people who have ready smiles in the intimacy of close friends.

------
foohbarbaz
Russians also like to dress in black or grey. I once was looking at a picture
of a group of Russian mountaineers on the summit of a Mexican volcano and
realized, that there was not a single red or yellow article of clothing, all
black. I don't have any non-black puffy jackets either and I am a... Russian
:)

------
viseztrance
I live in Romania and it's pretty much the same, however I don't agree with
the author. I noticed that many people abroad are genuinely more happy, and
speak with excitement about their day. The original explanation provides some
mental comfort, but I just don't buy it.

------
brownbat
I wonder if anyone has used slavic populations to try to reproduce Paul
Ekman's research, where Ekman tried to establish the universality of the use
of smiles worldwide.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ekman](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ekman)

------
ender89
My only take away is that a German asked a Russian about joy and that sounds
like the start to a great joke. I mean they are the most stereotypically
serious countries in Europe.

------
weinzierl
I have been in Russia when the Kursk submarine sank. This event was on the
news for days and whenever an official spoke about it on TV I had the
impression that they were admitting guilt. This was not the case I've been
told. The difference in body language is considerable.

~~~
maharajatever
You WERE in Russia when the Kursk submarine sank.

------
kombine
Being a Russian and having lived in a Western country long enough I started
noticing that I use this fake smile all the time when I bump by someone. Not
sure whether that's a good or a bad thing, but at least it is a code of
conduct here.

------
elementai
Now try to compare the number of genuine smiles with whole face (including
facial muscles near eyes) between russian and american people, i think that it
wont differ much.

------
maharajatever
Loving the passive aggressive half-arsed argumentative tone of this
discussion. I can't see many people here smiling at strangers. Or friends...
Or anyone.

Your German friend wants to see some miserable Russians? - go to the most
expensive places in Western Europe - and those are the rich Russians. The
others are just miserable by habit and because being non-miserable was bad
style during the Soviet years. And yes, that probably applies to most of the
Slavic nations (boo, generalisation, boo)...

------
squozzer
I'm not sure if it's an American thing, but I smile because I want people to
like me, or at least not kill me.

------
joelle
Is this for real? Seems like total BS. Esp. in making sweeping statements
across an entire cultures.

------
leokun
I've never seen too many people smile waiting for Bart either, and I've looked
for smiles.

------
madsaylor
I like when immigrants or wannabes shit all over theirs own people saying
that, "it's not culture, it's just everyone is miserable and suffering,
because of Stalin, Putin and gulag". I can tell you, fellow foreigners, this
behavior is also part of culture for centuries already too.

------
ommunist
Russians have a culture of eye contact, and foreigners just do mot get it.

------
msl09
Are Russians klingons?

~~~
Gravityloss
For some people who have not left their home country, other cultures might
seem weird like that. They may themselves seem to be from some alien race as
well, from someone others' viewpoint.

~~~
nmeofthestate
I love how HN etiquette rules make people more creative when trying to insult
each other.

------
koshak
so faaat!...

