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Old Aug 30, 2013, 02:13 PM
hamster-bamster hamster-bamster is offline
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Member Since: Sep 2011
Location: Northern California
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Quote:
Originally Posted by High Treason View Post
Yes, I think getting angry to the point of yelling is a bit over the top here. One thing that comes to mind is that you say he is from a different country. This could be part of it. People from various cultures have different ways of interacting with people. I don't know where he's from but just for example, new people just coming to Korea are often taken aback by the fact that it sounds like everyone is angry with each other all the time, especially the way men interact. I remember distinctly early on here hearing a conversation between my friend (Korean man) and another Korean man in Korean (and at that point I knew very little of the language so couldn't understand what they were saying) and asking my friend afterwards what was wrong, why they were so angry at each other. He was genuinely confused as to what I meant. He said they were just having a normal conversation. Everything about the tone of voice, volume level, etc conveyed anger to my American sensibilities, but it was completely misinterpreted. Is it possible that you interpreted as anger what he might have just considered frustration?
That is a good point - there is that old joke about a Brit and an Italian talking: the Brit keeps stepping backwards and the Italian keeps stepping forward - not that the Italian were attacking and the Brit were being attacked, no - it is just that the notion of what constitutes that appropriate distance between two conversation partners differs from Britain to Italy. Same thing.