Today I present another in my occasional series I call Pointless Discursions About Romania. Today's topic: Rudeness.
Romania apparently has a reputation for being super-rude. Recurring blog-character Em told me that Romania was voted the second-rudest country in the world (presumably after France, which was rude enough to show an entire ethnic group the door for being too dusky).
Rudeness, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. For example, I remember reading about an American tourist in Japan ordering a cup of coffee:
Tourist: I'd like some toast and a cup of coffee, please.
Waiter: Toast and coffee, right away sir. Or would you prefer tea?
Tourist: No, coffee, please.
Waiter: Very well. Although I should mention that our establishment is quite famous for its wonderful teas.
Tourist: Maybe next time. Today I'd prefer coffee. Please.
Waiter: Of course. Right away. Only, on a day such as today, a tea would be most refreshing!
Tourist: Okay, but I don't want tea. I want coffee.
He eventually realizes that the waiter is trying to tell him that they don't have coffee at that restaurant, but is doing it in the Japanese way -- and that by Japanese standards, the customer is being shockingly rude in his responses. So the point is, rudeness is really an arbitrary cultural measure, and as long as nobody's getting injured or having their civil rights violated, this is more of a tomato-tomahto thing than one culture being objectively better than the other, except for American culture which is definitely better than everyone else's.
After living here for a couple of months, I think there are three main reasons Romania has a reputation for rudeness:
1. Romanians are really rude. Out on the street, there's just very little cultural impetus towards politeness. If you give up your seat for an elderly lady on the bus, she just sits down without even looking at you, much less saying "Thanks." If someone needs to get by you in a crowd, they just shove you aside or push past. No "Excuse me" beforehand, no "Sorry" afterwards, just a Walter Payton stiff-arm and on they go. It's just the way things are done here among strangers. Among friends and family, though, there tends to be a lot more "Please" and "Thank you" and "Excuse me," for some reason.
2. Romanians are very honest and direct. Especially older or more provincial Romanians. My first trip here, one of Ioana's relatives came over for dinner and said she couldn't believe how fat I was considering how little I ate. She's not being a jerk, that's just Romanian culture. It didn't really bother me -- nobody knows better than I do that I need to eat better and exercise more --but it's the sort of thing that would send a lot of Americans over a cliff. And even if you're not bothered by it, the natural American reaction is to assume the person is deliberately insulting you. Because in America, they would be. But in Romania, they're making pleasant conversation. It's just a difference in cultural mores. And really, an argument can be made that the Romanian way is the natural one. We've all seen young kids go "Mommy, she's fat!" at the grocery store. It takes years of whispered scolding to get them to stop. Not that being naturally uninhibited and free is necessarily better, though. Those kids also poop in their pants.
3. Romanians sound like they're arguing all the time. When Romanians are having a conversation, the norm is for two people to be talking at once. They just both talk right over each other, and somehow (I assume) they both listen to each other while simultaneously talking to one another. In America, if two people end up talking at once, one of them immediately stops talking. Often both of them do, leading to that "Go ahead" "No, you go ahead" nonsense. If two people are both talking it's a sign that they're seriously pissed at each other. On top of that, Romanian voices tend to go up in volume and pitch the longer the sentence goes. In America, that's a sign that someone is getting really worked up. In Romania, it's meaningless. So as you walk down the street, it sounds like everyone is getting into a pistols-at-dawn argument with each other, yelling and speaking over the other person. In reality, everyone is just having a pleasant day's conversation about metric football.
In the end, pretty much all of this stuff comes down to harmless cultural differences, which are sort of nice to see. In an increasingly globalized and standardized world, where I can travel behind the Iron Curtain and still find lots of signs written in unintelligible English, it's good to know that we still retain some distinction in our cultures and that there are new things to see and experience. We are, truly, the world.
And by "We," I mean America.
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