Rabbis, Running, and Polite Countries

[jack]

Ordination

This weekend I went to see one of my friends ordained as a Rabbi. She was lovely. It's strange to think of someone I know being an official community leader that way, though.

Gym

Last month I've barely been to the gym -- nearly two weeks in Bosnia, nearly a week with Grandfather, and a week panicking about house stuff. Before I was very slowly building up my running stamina and speed, but I'd reverted about a week's improvement, which is not great, but not bad and not surprising. I just managed to equal my second-best time, but I was pushing myself really hard to do it. My weight stayed about the same.

In general, I'm pleased -- I knew even after a short break I would need to build myself up again, and I knew it would happen sooner or later, and I successfully forced myself to pick a speed I could (just) run the whole 5k at, rather than pretending I could run at my previous best speed and cheating the results.

Polite countries

I was talking to dutch friends-of-a-friend, and the first thing several of them said is "don't be offended if I'm blunt, I'm dutch" :) And we both quoted some of the lists of "what English people say and what that means", like "that's an interesting idea with many good aspects" means "no".

But it occurs to me there's something of a continuum. I've never been to Japan, or any other east asian countries, but a common cultural-differences warning is that people are ultra-polite and expect you to know what they mean, even when they won't say "no". And I wondered, is there a continuum where Japan is "as polite as England, but more so"? Could you arrange all the countries in a scale of "average politeness and circumlocution"? :)

Comments

[corrvin]

"Could you arrange all the countries in a scale of "average politeness and circumlocution"?"

I'm tempted to say "That's an interesting idea with many good aspects."

There's some cultural relativism here-- if lots of people who speak a certain language use a phrase to mean "no" then it doesn't matter if it word-for-word translates as "I have to go wash my cat," it's actually equivalent to "no."

I think the difference is more intra-cultural Ask vs Guess than inter-cultural, actually. (Here's the Ask Vs Guess original explanation) You notice people being indirect in other cultures because you don't "read" it as well as your own, and sometimes it's funnier.

But most people don't notice how, for instance, we don't say "give me the salt" but "Can you pass me the salt?" or even more politely "Could you pass me the salt?" It's the same way we layer politeness over a "no, I won't" to be "I'm afraid that won't be possible" or even "Perhaps, we'll see how the schedule looks" (and so on).