I can't imagine not smiling all the time.
A year ago I went to the United States due to the exchange program. It was a cultural shock for me because people there were very smiling and polite, while I was used to more reserved behavior in Russia. After 8 wonderful months in America I returned to my homecountry and then I had the reverse cultural shock. My compatriots seemed to me extremely sad, dull and rude. In this video I'm reflecting on my American experince and I am trying to understand the differences between Russian and Western cultures. Why Russians don't smile? Are they really so rude to strangers? I'll try to answer these questions in this video.
CULTURAL SHOCK or returning to Russia after the US / Why Russians don't smile?
I can vouch for it.
ReplyDeleteI still recall the time my parents took my brother and me to visit a Russian Orthodox Church that was a few blocks from where we lived. It was out of curiosity to see the similarities/differences between the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches. Let me tell you what as a 10-yr old I still remember clearly. The Russians looked so different from us. Also, the gloom — how gloomy they looked as if something sad happened or was about to happen. I know it’s a church and you’re supposed to be serious, but these people took it to the extreme.
After watching some of her videos, the reason for their gloom becomes apparent. Things are not well in Putin's Russia.
ReplyDeleteWHY RUSSIANS DON'T SMILE?
ReplyDeleteLike lastgreek says, cultural.
This cultural trait is not unique to Russians, either. In many cultures and subcultures a smile is a signal that carries meaningful information and it is used as such. Smiling all the time for no reason is considered simpleminded and can even be intrusive by sending a confusing signal.
The weather there seems not very good... we need at least some sunny days..
ReplyDeleteWhat’s funny is that during the Cold War, when you saw Russian females you would see some old babushka with a hard look and overweight, etc...
ReplyDelete(I never understood the Beatles song ‘Back in the USSR’)
Then the wall came down and all of these pretty females in great shape started appearing and I remember i was like wtf where in the hell did these women come from...
This young lady is a good example of that... she has her shit together...
What’s funny is that during the Cold War
ReplyDeleteYes, funny how that works.
You should listen to more of her videos. Putin and his cronies are ripping off the far east. And there is discrimination against non-slavic people. Corruption galore.
ReplyDeleteTheo only time Russian men smile is when they are beating their wives.
ReplyDeleteAt least it was Cold Tom...
ReplyDeleteAnd btw you know this whole exchange student program is 100% US soft power initiative... Xi’s daughter is at Harvard...
ReplyDeleteHow did Larry Summers get into Harvard, let alone graduate?
ReplyDeleteIf my kid applies and gets admitted to an Oxford college, I'll have a great excuse to visit Oxford county and see all the Inspector Morse filming locations :) Still, I'd be very happy if she got into McGill med school, too :))
Summers uncle was Paul Samuelson... nepotism... how did Xis daughter get in to Harvard?
ReplyDeleteMembers of the ruling class attend ruling class schools.
ReplyDeleteWhat’s funny is the Ivy League is comprised of old pre-Science degree established Protestant bible colleges...
ReplyDeletelastgreek,
ReplyDeleteCollege economics is an area that I've studied well. Traditionally, the average return for a college degree was about a million dollars more in lifetime earnings. The median, which is more representative, was about $500k. Either way, the IRR of a college education was about 7%. Recently, that has fallen. The following is by Tyler Cowen from the Marginal Revolution University website. (The link to the study is on that page):
Is the college wealth premium *zero*?
Now this one is a stunner:
The college income premium—the extra income earned by a family headed by a college graduate over an otherwise similar family without a bachelor’s degree—remains positive but has declined for recent graduates. The college wealth premium (extra wealth) has declined more noticeably among all cohorts born after 1940. Among non-Hispanic white family heads born in the 1980s, the college wealth premium is at a historic low; among all other races and ethnicities, it is statistically indistinguishable from zero [emphasis added]. Using variables available for the first time in the 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances, we find that controlling for the education of one’s parents reduces our estimates of college and postgraduate income and wealth premiums by 8 to 18 percent. Controlling also for measures of a respondent’s financial acumen—which may be partly innate—, our estimates of the value added by college and a postgraduate degree fall by 30 to 60 percent. Taken together, our results suggest that college and post-graduate education may be failing some recent graduates as a financial investment. We explore a variety of explanations and conclude that falling college wealth premiums may be due to the luck of when you were born, financial liberalization and the rising cost of higher education.
As an aside, there's more to higher education than money. Having said that, maybe you don't want your kids learning what they're teaching at universities these days.
On a personal note, and knowing what I know, I encouraged my oldest daughter to avoid going to university. She worked for a few years to build up some savings, I added to that money that I would have used for higher education, and we invested in financial assets for her instead (stock market). At the rate she's going, she'll be financially independent by the age of 40.
A few years back, 100,000 Albertans in the energy industry lost their jobs. These were highly paid workers but carrying a lot of student debt. They were struggling to find jobs at Home Depot. Some had to leave the province for work elsewhere.
As investors and widely diversified across the Canadian economy, we were not affected by this at all. What matters is not only quantity of earnings, but quality of earnings, i.e., how does your income hold up in hard times.
Anyway, I hope I've given you some stuff to think about.
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ReplyDeleteThe blog is screwing up my links. They keep point back here.
ReplyDeleteFurther to my comment,
ReplyDeleteThis article compares the lifetime income of a UPS driver to a doctor. Check out the numbers in the article:
A Novel Look at Physician Income: Why a medical career is the wrong career if money is one of your primary motives
Analysis by Kevin Pezzi, MD: The cliché about rich doctors is so well-known that it verges on redundancy in the minds of many people. However, I will demonstrate how people in seemingly much less lucrative jobs can outearn doctors. For example, who would think that a UPS driver or auto mechanic could earn more than a doctor? Probably no one except me and, in a few minutes, you, too.
The January 26, 2004 edition of U.S. News & World Report said that UPS drivers earn $60,000 per year (my UPS driver said that he earns $85,000 per year circa 2009). The average physician income is usually quoted as being $160,000 to $200,000 per year, so it may seem preposterous to claim that UPS drivers can earn more than doctors. Just wait.
According to information given to me by a UPS representative on May 13, 2005, UPS drivers require no specialized education. Thus, a person could begin working for UPS immediately after high school. In contrast, a would-be doctor requires many years of education for which he is paid nothing. In fact, doctors typically incur substantial debt to pay for college and medical school. So UPS drivers are being paid while those who aspire to become doctors are paying for the privilege of pursuing their dream.
source: A Novel Look at Physician Income: Why a medical career is the wrong career if money is one of your primary motives
source in text: http://www.er-doctor.com/doctor_income.html
If neither above works, just Google the title in the first link: i.e., "A Novel Look at Physician Income: Why a medical career is the wrong career if money is one of your primary motives"
Links appear to be working again. Here is the first link I posted:
ReplyDeleteIs the college wealth premium *zero*?