I think I know what you mean here. To answer puts one in the unpleasant position of having to generalise, which from what your wrote I believe is not your intention, and personally, is never mine. So I guess I'm about to contradict myself now. And like you I'm not interested in getting yet one more of those local / foreign internet spats in doing so by responding. (So if anyone misconstrues it that way don't expect me to get sucked into your game).
Like foreigners, locals come in many flavours, to use an analogy, and in my time here I've found more likely locals to have more predictable points of views and of limited range. So there's a generalisation.
But rather than use that, a real life example. I was going through a work situation years ago, and went to lunch to confide in a colleague who was a friend from the prior company we were both in, so we had a bond there. Had the bond not been there I wouldn't have confided in her, and I regarded her as a bright lady. Having said that, we'd never talked about serious personal things before. She's local and younger, I'm Western. She knew what I was going through in that new company, and she knew how well I was regarded at our last company.
At the end of giving her the colour of my situation, she responded, with a straight face, full of sincerity and enthusiasm, so banal a response that I was speechless. Waiting for the punchline.
I thought maybe I had missed or misunderstood something, so I kept listening. And she continued on, with well-intentioned trite platitudes. One after another. And just looked at her, stunned, but trying to be gracious and grateful.
The discomfort was only on my side, this was not a tense situation where both privately come to the same conclusion like someone breaking wind. But I had that ache of mistake one gets when divulging something deep and personal to someone who turns out to be frighteningly shallow and unequipped to deal with that level of discussion, a level that I know if I had done so with just about any Westerner, as I have many times before and since, it would have actually been a two-way and same level conversation.
After that lunch, I never spoke to her again. To do so would have just been a waste of time. I've had deeper conversations with nieces and nephews half her age.
That was in my early days here, and I've since had similar experiences of varying degrees. So in my actual experience, which transcends initial generalisations, there is a common thread.
Is that what you were referring to?
JR8 wrote:I'm in the midst of a complicated personal situation* this week where I am dealing with SGns on one side, and locals in Europe on another.
The situation and required solution are quite clear. The SGns seem to just kind of 'stand and stare' and I get no feeling that they ... not, empathise... um, but that they can see what is being done, what is required and why. Whereas the Europeans just want the facts, the plan, and are setting about dealing with it.
It's got me wondering to what extent expats can actually hope to connect on a personal level with people from such a different culture.
This is not a one-sided dig by any means, I understand that SGns have many beliefs and practices (the concept of face, superstitions of hungry ghosts lol, kiasuism etc) that are probably fathomless to most expats too.
It's kind of got me reflecting how superficial my connection is with most SGns that I know, even those I consider friends of years.
Just a random brain-dump... ...
* to be less vague family bereavement, but lets not go into that.
)
