TRAVELLERS may love France
for its towering Eiffel and romantic Louvre, but not the country's natives. A
poll conducted by Skyscanner revealed that the French have been voted by 1,200
of its respondents as the rudest nation.
The French took the biggest
share of the pie - at 19 per cent - for being "abrupt and curt," it
said in a press release.
The Russians came a close
second at 17 per cent, while the British were third at 10 per cent.
China emerged fourth on the
list, leading the pack in Asia. (Emm...we couldn't agree more)
But the website attributed
the rankings to differences in culture more than genuine rudeness.
Case in point:
"Russians can be more direct when talking, which may be misconstrued as
being rude," explained Tatiana Danilova, Russian market manager for
Skyscanner.
"The Russian language
is not as polite as English, so when Russians translate directly from Russian
to English, it can sound rude to an English speaker even if they don’t mean it
to.
On the other hand, the
"Russians tend to consider British people extremely polite due to their
courteous way of speaking,” she said.
Skyscanner marketing manager
for China, Yi Bao, gave another example to back the cultural difference theory.
He said, while queuing is a
social norm in the West, it’s not a common behavior for Chinese people, “so
(it) could be interpreted as being rude (by international travellers).” (asiaone)
No comments:
Post a Comment