And who is the rudest of them all ...
I read with surprise, the results of a Readers Digest survey that rated New Yorkers as being the most polite people in the world, with the citizens of India (Mumbai in specific) rated as the most impolite.
The criteria used were on whether people held the door open; whether the salespeople said “thank you” when people bought small items in stores and whether people would help pick up papers, when someone dropped a folder full of papers in busy locations.
I believe that this survey is skewed against India. Nobody says "Thank you" in India, people smile instead. Holding a door open is simply not something we are taught while growing up. And if someone drops papers in the middle of the street, I am sure Indians would rush to help.
The US seems like a super-polite place, but you know what, a lot of it just a load of artificial automation. For example, almost everyone you pass on the street will say "Hi, how are you ?", and then you reply "Great, how are you" and they say "Good, thanks" and there ends the inanity.
I tried a small test once, and in response to the "Hi, how are you ?" question, I said "I am going to kill myself", and guess what the response was ? "Good, thanks" !
Indians are super helpful, we might lack the polish and the drilling of manners into our head, and that might make us seem impolite and unfriendly. But, we are genuinely concerned about other people, to the extent that we would inconvenience ourselves, something that few Americans would. I dont know too much about the other countries on the list.
7 Comments:
India needs more like you to lobby our cases..
j
ammu, you are rightt... americans are plastic...eg. an airhostess smiling and saying "Hi how are you " genuine ?? thats how the guys in US are they dont mean it they just say it
its not from the heart it from the head.
Yeah, I know. The rudest city test doesn't really apply in this context. There was a great rebuttal about it by Suketu in yesterday's WSJ.
A good post mr.Mani..keep it coming...
Thanks.
It's interesting to see the reactions people have had to this issue.
I'm a 17 year old male (indian) going to study in Seattle this fall and I know a thing or two about Mumbai
NYC polite? Nice try readers digest...didn't fool me.
Mumbai, rudest? If they'd put a few more indian cities in there, they'd all have ranked in there with mumbai. Agra might have taken dead last tho.
All this chatter about 'it's not our culture', 'our cities are too big' etc etc is absolute nonsense.
When you hold the door open for somebody, nobody expects you to be a doorman. It's a very simple, reflex action (in considerate people) to trail your hand behind you and maybe slow your pace for a moment until the next person gets through. And it goes on. And you lose the rudest city in the world status.
People spit out of their cars, rickshaws, buses, onto the (once) pristine white marble of office buildings and residence buildings.
don't let me hear that we mumbaiites come together when it matters like the devastating floods of last year.
1) it's a crisis. nobody behaves like they usually would. and it only happens once every 10 years.
2)the root cause of the flooding is the inherent flaws of the country. society, family, attitudes...etc. Nobody can be pinpointed. We are all to blame. Not 'the culture'. The indus valley civilization had the first planned large scale sewage system in the history of mankind. Most of mumbai's sewer system today, 6,000 years later, cannot compare to this. The original cultures are fine. The people are not.
Having said all that.I still think Mumbai is not the rudest of them all simply because of the parameters based on which the survey was taken does not give us the big picture.Following are the same:I pasted it from ndtv.com
Do they hold the door open for some one following them?
Do they help a passerby who has dropped something?
Are shoppers thanked after they complete shopping?
So people you know what I'm talking about!!
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