[Mageia-discuss] Cultural difference: "Let your yes be yes" <---> "It is rude to say no"

Fri Jul 13 12:53:05 CEST 2012

On 13/07/2012 08:42, Wolfgang Bornath wrote:
+> All this leaves me wondering open-mouthed. Wondering how people yould
+> manage their daily lives when they don't want to use a clear negative
+> answer to a question where "yes" and "no" would cause different
+> consequences.
+>
+> Marjy, if I'd ask you "Would it be ok when I come visiting next week?"
+> I need a valid answer because if you say "yes" I will buy a ticket and
+> hop on the train next monday. And I'd be very surprised if I will
+> knock on your door and you are not there because you said "yes" just
+> out of being polite.
+>
+
+No fear. You're welcome, the guest room is free and the owner of this 
+house agrees.
+However, I might be gone for up to 30 hrs next week, because I might 
+have to accompany an elderly relative to hospital. You won't feel lost 
+then, there are a lot of nice people living in this area ;)
+
+>I still don't think it is rude to reply "no" where
+> "no" is the correct answer. Actually I find it quite rude to give the
+> other the impression of being ready to do something while I have not
+> the slightest intention to really do it.
+
+What I was trying to get across, is that learning that saying "no" is 
+not evil, can take very many years. If you are raised in such a culture, 
+it means you are programmed that way. You can't reboot yourself and boot 
+into the "it is OK to say "no"" mode.
+
+It took me very many years (it was a gradual process) to really learn it.
+
+I don't see how someone else could achieve this in a split second.
+
+It can even be worse, I know of a Chinese woman (a very bright one, 
+besides that: she has studied in the West and speaks English very well) 
+who works in the IT and who went to great lengths to do something her 
+mentor told her to do (that is what she thought, in spite of all the 
+time she had spent in the West and in spite of all the time she had 
+already been working for a Western company) what he never asked of her 
+(in his western mind).
+
+But I'll put that in another thread, that is another cultural difference
+
+