I've just been reading a great article on the BBC website here in the UK (click here). It concerns cultural differences between the UK and Germany, and goes on to talk about German directness and British politeness in conversation. The comments left by the readers (click here)also adds a lot of enjoyment and humour to the topic. There are lots of different views, with lots of other countries mentioned, including The Netherlands with it's famed bluntness.

I've read on this forum a few times how people from The Netherlands are proud of being direct in their conversation and tone, but in the UK this way of acting would be considered very rude. This also applies to the forums where a few Brits have gotten into trouble with humour that has not been understood as such :)

Have a read if you want, especially the readers comments, as I found it clarified a few things for me here, regarding how we speak to fellow micers and also how we react to perceived sleights, which may just be down to cultural differences.

Davey, thanks very much for those links - great reading! My own experiences may contradict some of the findings occasionally, but then I also think that people react to whoever initiates the conversation. I actually found Germans to be rather friendly and not particularly averse to small talk. Even during the project I was in for two months, they were direct in their expectations of the consulting engagement, but really no more so than your typical American client.

Of course, my Amsterdam experiences have been very short and you tend not to worry too much during vacations - especially when you're baked out of your mind - but I've found the Dutch to be very polite as well. I've only been to the UK for a couple of days once, but have known Brits here in the US, and I frankly can't tell the difference in attitudes all that much.

My own experiences in Canada were that Canadians were indeed extremely polite - and I mean extremely so!

All that said, I doubt that a New Yorker, for example, would find German or Dutch directness to be unusual. On the other hand, someone who has grown up in "Minnesota-nice" may sense a difference.... I don't know. I can tell you one thing, though - where I live, there is a sense of coldness that I don't experience in other parts of the country.

Sam