Conversations, Culture Shocks and Conduct Differences

As my username likely suggests, I was born and grew up in Denmark.

Danes are sometimes regarded as rather quiet and reserved, if not outright cold, in some situations.

Are Danes cold? Nope, not really. It's more of a cultural thing, associated with "expected behavior" in social situations. Our culture teaches us that being outwardly gregarious is something primarily reserved for when you're in the company of close friends and people you know, or maybe when you're at a rock concert.

This is simply "the way," as it gets handed down to most people, as children. Being loud, boisterous and drawing a lot of attention to yourself is basically considered to be "in poor taste."

Granted, my perceptions are colored by the fact that I grew up in a very old-fashioned home where the old "children might be SEEN, but should not be HEARD" mantra still carried a lot of weight.

But it goes beyond that, into the territory of "how to have a conversation with other people."

Which brings me to one of my very first culture shocks, when I arrived in the USA to start University.

I found that I could simply not make any kind of inroads in conversations — whether they were with my college aged peers, or with older adults!

The problem?

Conversations — and particularly passionate ones — in the USA are often a sort of "verbal free-for-all" in which everyone just talks over everyone else. Which, to me, seemed like an impenetrable fortress, as I was always waiting for the next pause in the stream of words in order to add my perspective to the dialogue. Except, of course, there never was a break in the stream of words.

Way back then, I took it somewhat personally, and felt like I must have quite as good social skills as I had originally believed!

But then I talked to some of my fellow foreign students, and read a few anthropology papers and learned that this was actually a fairly common experience, particularly among Scandinavians and a few other Northern Europeans. You might say that our "rules of engagement" for conversations are simply different.

Which made me think back to my childhood, and the times my American Godfather from New York would come to visit us in Denmark.

He was always on at me to "stand tall, look 'em in the eye, and tell 'em what you know!"

Which I not only didn't understand, because it was counter to how I had been brought up, but it actually caused my mother to pull him aside and request that he stop encouraging such behavior because it was bordering on "culturally rude" in Denmark.

Of course, we live in a much more globally diverse world these days, and such differences are much less pronounced these 40-odd years later.

Even so, when we went back to Denmark as recently as 2015, our daughter remarked on what she came to call "The Danish Glare," referring to the fact that people on the street, or on the trains, or in public spaces don't really interact and engage with each other the way they do in the USA. And if you say hello to a stranger and smile at them, they might either look confused or just give you a "blank stare" of sorts, as they try to remember where they know you from.

It's funny how different the ways of the world are, even in this day and age where the Internet has brought our respective cultures so much closer to each other!

This past weekend, as we were attending a convention out of town, I was again reminded of the differences in cultural norms, as there were a number of attendees from outside the USA.

I noticed it, in particular, as I found myself in conversations with a couple of people from Germany... and observed how the "flow" was simply different. And I say that, having spent 40 years in the USA.

It's neither "good," nor "bad," it's simply different!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!

How about you? Have you lived in multiple countries? Have you observed any very specific cultural differences? If so, what are they? Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — Not posted elsewhere!)

Created at 2024.05.08 01:45 PDT
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