How Do You Know When Mangos Are Bad

The last time I went to America, I stopped in at a café for a java. While waiting for my card to go through, the woman behind the counter smiled and said, "What are your plans for the weekend?"

And I said, "Uh, I dunno."

"The atmospheric condition is overnice, huh?"

"Sure is," I replied.

This is an example of small talk. It'south the mouth'due south version of drumming its fingers.

An attempt to practise small talk in Russia

Dorsum in Russia, I met my friend Elena for java.

"Why did you lot write that if you talk to Russiansthey might desire to murder and eat you?" she asked.

"They do! When yous attempt to talk to them with pocket-sized talk."

"Not truthful," she said.

"Yes it is, especially with strangers."

She shook her head and rolled her optics at me.

"Right, and then like when you're in line at the shop, if I were to randomly start talking to you near something dumb, like if I started telling y'all about my day and how much I liked your blouse or the weather."

"No 1 would do that," she said.

I laughed. "Oh, oh yes, in America they do."

She looked at me, suspicious, as though I'd but said, "You know in America, people eat their own toes with ketchup."

The thing is, the only time a stranger has always volunteered something random to me on the streets of Russia, it was a squeamish old blind woman who said, "Oh, aren't you lot a handsome boy" earlier turning to the air beside my face up and saying "...and you too."

What Russians retrieve about small-scale talk

I asked a few Russians what they thought virtually small talk and received responses like:

"I personally hate small talkers - why they are talking to me? Are they actually interested in my mood? Can't they find out the conditions on the internet? Are they going to ask some favor from me? Just go abroad or say what you want directly!"

And:

"Russians don't really see the betoken of talking about obvious and bland things, it's just wearisome to us and is not a part of our civilization."

Some other Russian I spoke to thinks geography influences modest talk: "Location means a lot," he said. "I think that information technology's all about the weather: you just don't talk much where y'all simply run into snowfall and darkness for eight months. Y'all tin talk endlessly where the lord's day is shining all the time and the wine is free of charge."

The verdict seemed grim.

But I didn't want to just take people's word for it, so I decided to go out and try out some small talk on Russians. There's a shop down the road with a petty café stand in it where I become my morning java. The shopkeepers know me, when I walk in ane will say, "Hello my friend," and the other, "How are you?" but clearly doesn't wait a response. So, while waiting for my coffee I turned to the human being behind the counter and said in Russian, "So, the atmospheric condition today, huh?"

He frowned at me, then looked over my shoulder at the pissing rain and icy sidewalks of Saint petersburg in Spring and said:

"F*ck the weather "

"Are yous talking to me?"

I did this in front of my friend Ivan at a café. The lady behind the counter had simply handed me my latte and I said, "It's going to be a dainty weekend, any plans?"

She directly-upwardly ignored me and I turned to find Ivan frowning. "Are you lot talking to me?" he asked.

"No, I was trying to have small-talk, y'all know, just talk with the barista."

"Only y'all have a girlfriend?"

"What? Yes, no, just pocket-sized talk, you know, talk about something completely useless for the sake of engaging in chat."

He idea about it for a bit then on the walk back to my place he said, "Sometimes I wish in that location was smaller talk, my friends are always talking about such philosophical things." And and so he added, "Just it does happen sometimes, in the shop the other solar day I most forgot to buy a lighter for my cigarettes and the adult female backside the counter told me about how all morning she needed a lighter but couldn't find a working one and she believed she was cursed. Is this common in America?"

I said, "Yeah, especially in the south. And very oft when I'm in shops conversations will get stuck up about the weather condition, or the news, or some-such nonsense."

"Perhaps, information technology's so solitary people can hide better. If you're all talking all of the time, then how would you know who is lone?"

Large talks

If at that place are Russians who enjoy pocket-sized talk, I oasis't met them.

On the contrary, Russians like big and sometimes very personal talk - you might meet a Russian, especially on the train or in a bar, and within a few hours be as thick as thieves.

I came beyond this in my quest for small talk in the dingy Pushkin Bar. I was choosing a beer. There was only i other human in the place besides the bartender and he stood at the counter and watched me. Now, in America, I might plough to the homo and say, "How'due south information technology going?" and he would nod, smile and say something like, "Cracking, bang-up, some atmospheric condition we're having." And I'd say, "Yeah."

Merely when I turned to this man, who I subsequently (much later) learnt was named Tim, and said, "How's it going?" something very unlike happened.

5 hours after I was sat at the birthday party of Tim's best friend in a place he referred to as "a Soviet bar." I knew that Tim's father had been a general in the armed services and that many people around town respected his family unit for his father'south service. I knew that Tim could recite Shakespeare, considering he did, and that his mother had left his father when he was very young and moved into her own apartment and that his father had died. I knew that he still lived with his female parent and that surely, she'd love me and surely, I was welcome for dinner and to stay the dark. Oh, and by the way, my name is Tim.

The thing is that small talk isn't a way of talking to someone, it'due south talking at them - there is no depth or purpose to it; it is like an awkward high school trip the light fantastic toe to the last 30 seconds of a bad song with no rhythm. Information technology is dull, and Russians tend to be anything only slow. After, equally I walked forth the street with an inebriated Tim, he began telling me about his fourth dimension in New York Urban center before we were stopped past an older adult female.

"Mother!" Tim cried.

"This is my female parent."

The woman glared at me then grabbed Tim by his jacket.

"Y'all fool, what are you lot doing walking around in this cold. And you're drunk!!" she cried at him, so wrapped his scarf tighter around his neck. Tim swayed a fleck, before breaking loose to become vomit into the snowbank.

I looked at his mother, she at me.

I felt awkward. I said, "And so, uh, the weather, huh?"

She frowned, "F*ck the weather."

Benjamin Davis , an American author living in Russia, explores various topics, from the pointless to the profound, through conversations with Russians. Last fourth dimension he explores what do Russians call back of Trump. Next time he will explore gun buying in Russia. If yous have something to say or want Benjamin to explore a particular topic, write u.s. in a comment section below or write united states of america on Facebook .

If using whatever of Russia Beyond'due south content, partly or in full, always provide an active hyperlink to the original fabric.

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Source: https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/330182-small-talks-weather-russia

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