# Are people friendly in London? - DOWN with stereotypes!



## olives

Hey,

I'd like to have your opinion of what you think about London people. Are they friendly? Are they unfriendly? Is there a majority of people being rude or polite in London?

Are londoners more friendly than parisian? more than people from Berlin? Madrid? Rome?

Is it really possible to compare a population with another one and say, "this one is nicer than that one!"?

Please, avoid the stereotypes and the clichés. Maybe my question per se shouldn't be ask!

I could be wrong and it could sound like a cliché, but when I went window-shopping in my borough (Bayswater street, next to Hyde Park, an immigrant borough full of indian people) to find some presents, shopkeepers don’t really care about the “manners” like saying goodbye or hello. 

Something to do with the fact that many of them immigrants and I was a little lost french guy?. I don't think so but we never know.

In France, people would make a big thing out of it! Once again, I absolutely can’t be positive and it’s more of an hypothesis than a fact. And when I say, "In france, people would...", it sounds like a stereotype to me.

So what's the truth?

PS : Please, read the entire post before answering this message. I'm not always, let's say, "straightforward". So I really suggest you to read on. Thanks.


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## Paulfromitaly

olives said:


> Hey,
> 
> I'd like to have your opinion of what you think about London people.



Would you please tell me what you mean with "London people" ?
- People living in the London area? I don't think you can stereotype the figure of people living in London as there are millions of folks in that area and they come from every possible little country around the world; that's why London is the example of a successful (or maybe not?) attempt to create a cultural melting-pot.
- Real Londoners? I don't know how many Londoners you'd be able to find in London..you'd likely find more of them in the Chiantishire..


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## olives

Well, i mean both. People living in the London area, that is, the immigrants or people coming from the immigration if you like. and then, the real londoners.

Besides, is there a big difference between the real Londoners and the immigrants? I mean, is the melting-pot well melted? if I may say...

Any anedoctes???


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## Lemminkäinen

olives said:


> [...] shopkeepers don’t really care about the “manners” like saying goodbye or hello.



In my experience (which is of course entirely subjective), the French (Mediterranean perhaps?) habit of saying "hi" and "goodbye" when entering and leaving a store isn't that usual more north in Europe.

I haven't actually been in London, so I can't say anything about how the situation is there though.


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## olives

Really???????????????????????

Saying "hi" and "goodbye" when entering into/leaving a shop isn't so common in some countries or areas or culture???????????


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## Lemminkäinen

olives said:


> Saying "hi" and "goodbye" when entering into/leaving a shop isn't so common in some countries or areas or culture???????????



You'll have to wait for some Londoners to tell you how it is over there, but at least here it's not that common. The French view, if I've understood it correctly, is that shops (especially smaller ones) are the property of the shopkeeper, and that it's only curtous to say "hello" when entering someone's private property.
I think the view here is more that the shop is sort of an "open market" where the shopkeeper is there to take your money for whatever you buy.
(Though of course, this depends on the store and the employees - some are very friendly, others less so).

My English teacher told us about how he had been told by a London shopkeeper that he recognised Norwegian students (on school trips) because of their not saying things like "please" and "thank you".


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## RAPHUS CUCULLATUS

olives said:


> Is it really possible to compare a population with another one and say, "this one is nicer than that one!"?  * No, it is not, unless one wants to try to provoke a really useless and superficial argument. *
> 
> Please, avoid the stereotypes and the clichés. * This thread is about stereotypes and clichés. *
> 
> Maybe my question per se shouldn't be ask!  *Right!*


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## cuchuflete

There are about seven and a half million people in greater London.  Any general comment about that many people is almost certain to be wrong.


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## GEmatt

Olives,

How can you turn residual dissatisfaction at the occasional Bayswater shopkeeper's failure to say hello or goodbye to you, into a discussion of whether "people in London are friendly or not"? A city with more than 3 times the population of Paris? More than 300 languages and 50 non-indigenous communities?* This is generalization _in extremis_, surely.

Why do you expect friendliness, instead of for example being happy with only politeness? Don't you think that in some parts of the world, "friendliness" is deemed inappropriate between people who don't know eachother? Did you know that in other places, politeness is not if you say "hello" or "goodbye", but in the way you take the customers money and give back the change? Would you know such politeness (i.e. in a foreign country/culture) if you encountered it? How do you measure it? Do you measure friendliness by your own personal values, or by your entire city's/nations values? For all you know, in the single room above your head in the unfriendly Bayswater shop, 3 generations of the same family might have been living, on £50 a month. For all you know, if you had resided in Bayswater for a little longer than you did, you might be best friends with the shopkeeper now. Sorry for going on and on, and going off-topic, but I get emotional when faced with cross-cultural generalizations. No offense to anybody.

_*Edit: __http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London#Demographics_


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## olives

Yet, there's a problem. We tend to say that in Spain, people are nicer because of the sun  - well you know what I mean, the atmosphere is better, the sun is there etc... the weather is conducive to the good mood, if I may say.

True or False?

If it's true, why the contrary shouldn't be true (about London for example)?  

Also, people must be more stressed in the big cities like London... Hard and long working day, the roads are congested with road... etc etc.. stuff like that...


And...
So, if it's not possible to say that Londoners are nice or unfriendly etc... Can we, at least, talk about the manners, the behaviours of the londoners(People living in the area and real londoners) ?
About the shopkeepers and the "hello/no-hello" thing that we've just said.


Raphus Cucullatus. You answered the question but would you mind to argue please?


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## olives

Hi GEmatt.

How can you turn residual dissatisfaction at the occasional Bayswater shopkeeper's failure to say hello or goodbye to you, into a discussion of whether "people in London are friendly or not"? 
=> Actually, it's not a dissatisfaction. I try to find the truth about things that we can generally hear and get rid of every prejudice that I could bear on country or people but also, I kind of want to "fix" some "general truth" on people/nation, without falling into the prejudices, and if it's possible because this is what everybody tends to do, which now doesn't mean that everybody's right, but people speculate many things and there must be a part of truth somewhere eventually, I guess.
=> To come back to what you said. About the shopkeepers, that's rather out of line with the rest of the thread, but this is part of the things that I want to know but i'm not associating the shopkeepers 'manners' with 'whether londoners are kind or not'. If I did, sorry.

"Don't you think that in some parts of the world, "friendliness" is deemed inappropriate between people who don't know eachother?"
=> I didn't think of that actually.

Did you know that in other places, politeness is not if you say "hello" or goodbye", but in the way you take the customers money and give back the change?"
=> According to what you say, would it be possible that Indian people, for example, don't really find "politeness" in saying "hello/good bye". Actually, it means that they were brought up in a different way about certain points(obviously, culture, culture...).
But, I find it "strange" even so. I don't know... Is it really this difference of culture? What about the other small retailers held by "real londoners" (no offence!)

Actually, I didn't travel much, which could explain my "surprise" and so don't take it out on me (I'm kidding) but I just try to understand and have a better view.


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## Paulfromitaly

Olives,
I think that your reasoning is affected by wrong preliminary remarks: considering the London population so homogeneous that you can predict Londoners behaviour basing yourself on what you've heard about few of them.  
What if someone claimed that you're rude just because they once met a French girl who was actually rude?


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## olives

"What if someone claimed that you're rude just because they once met a French girl who was actually rude?"
=> In fact, I think that's what many people do, even inconsciously.

"considering the London population so homogeneous that you can predict Londoners behaviour basing yourself on what you've heard about few of them"
=> I am basing on this thread actually, If I may say. Maybe some areas of London stand out from others? Maybe pakistani people differ much to "real londoners".
Actually, I'm not speaking, here, only about, whether people are "nice" or not, but whether there are tendencies, because of cultures, for example, that stand out in some group of people, as we said before about Indian people, and the "hi/hello" thing.


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## RAPHUS CUCULLATUS

There is nothing to argue about.  The idea behind this thread has the depth of Madonna's nail polish.  There are enough Londoners to prove, by the hundreds of thousands,  that anything you say about the lot of them is as valuable as a bucket of ___________.  

Then you heap a few equally dumb stereotypes about Spaniards on.  Tell the people in Asturias and Galicia all about the sunshine and dispositions.  Next you will have every Spaniard clicking castanets, fighting bulls, or fanning themselves with abanicos.

You've already proved how little stereotypes are worth.  Surely the Flat Earth Society would be interested in this topic.


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## maxiogee

olives said:


> Is it really possible to compare a population with another one and say, "this one is nicer than that one!"?



*No. *
End of discussion.


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## don maico

I would say from experience that English people from the south east tend to be rather reserved and in London probably more than most areas If one was  to chat to a complete stranger at a bus stop for example ,there is a good chance one would be looked at oddly ,even ignored. Then again some people are very selfconfident and will break into conversation almost anywhere. They are a rarity though.In the  the East End of London one might come across rather more vocal people but on the whole I wouldnt describe London as a friendly place but then I didnt find Paris so either. New York post 9/11 was different. Twice I was there and on the whole found quite a number of people willing to give me some chat especially cab drivers who had such bad reputation for rudeness. That was not my experience at all.
I think one would need to travel to the north of England to find English people who are more willing to give one the "time of day" .In London, I fear, one could be the loneliest of people if one didnt have contacts / friendships.Lovely city though!


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## olives

Okay.

Does someone know other differences in the habits about Indians in London, which could astonish? or about groups of people? compared to other londoners, other countries like France or Spain?


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## RAPHUS CUCULLATUS

olives said:


> Okay.
> 
> Does someone know other differences in the habits about Indians in London, which could astonish? or about groups of people? compared to other londoners, other countries like France or Spain?



That's good.  Get beat on the head by enough people saying there is no topic here, so go off topic, change the subject to a new collection of worthless stereotypes.  "or about groups of peope?"  Yes, let's talk about groups of people who like to shoot a horse, then beat it to death, then try to kill it.  

Why don't we compare villagers in the outskirts of Toulouse to the Inuit?
Which ones are least friendly while consuming walrus meat on Thursdays?
Is this cultural, or a national characteristic resulting from climatic conditions?


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## olives

Don Maico, is it possible that what you said, generally refers to the big cities and the capitals while in the little towns, we tend to speak more easily to other people that you don't know? Which would means that it is particular to most of the big cities?


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## Cereth

Unfortunately I haven´t been in London, the only thing I can say is that in Mexico you´ll never have that problem, and personally I get really  pissed if the people is not enough educated to say : Hello and goodbye.

No more comments


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## olives

There's no stereotype in my question, Raphus Cucullatus. People have different cultures and tend to do things differently. I'd like to know some of these differences.


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## invictaspirit

This is an extraordinarily simplistic topic.

There are 8 million Londoners, plus at least another 2 million commuters and tourists in any given day.  Some of them are amomg the nicest people in the world and others are complete bastards, just like any other huge city, irrespective of their race.

End of.


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## RAPHUS CUCULLATUS

olives said:


> There's no stereotype in my question, Raphus Cucullatus. People have different cultures and tend to do things differently. I'd like to know some of these differences.



I guess, if there is no stereotype in your question, you didn't author these remarks.




> I'd like to have your opinion of what you think about London people. Are they friendly? Are they unfriendly? Is there a majority of people being rude or polite in London?
> 
> Are londoners more friendly than parisian? more than people from Berlin? Madrid? Rome?



How much of your life would you have to spend in London to be able to
say anything useful about "a majority of people being rude or polite"?

Suppose you lived in London, and met a hundred people a day, every day of the year.  That's 36,500 people a year. In ten years you would have met about 5% of all Londoners.  

Since nearly a third of Londoners speak some language other than English, I guess they qualify as "real Londoners".  

Are Londoners more friendly than Parisians?  The clear answer is "Yes" and "No" and "Maybe".  Pick the answer you like, and enjoy it.*  





















*It will be a wrong answer.







Bad questions yield meaningless answers.  How's that for a generality you can embrace?


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## Chaska Ñawi

The point that one cannot generalize to this extent about a city of 7 or 8 million people and still have a viable thread has now been well and truly made.

There seems to be nothing left to add; and as the discussion is now going in circles, the time has come to close this thread.


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