The Struggles of Communication

When I tell people here that I arrived to the US from Germany only a few weeks ago, one of the first questions (after: "Why on earth did you choose OHIO out of all places?") is: "What was the biggest culture shock?" or "What's the most difficult thing to get used to?"

This question is easy to answer: Although I am quite familiar with the English language, the difficult culture of communication is the biggest challenge I have been facing here.

The differences are usually very minor, but can make social encounters awkward. The phrase "How are you doing?" is used all the time – at the cash register, in restaurants, when greeting people on the street. I still haven't figured out how to respond to that question appropriately. Just yesterday, I saw a girl from my class on the street. She smiled and said: "Hey, how are you?" without stopping, and I answered: "I'm good. How are you?" But by the time I had finished my sentence, she was already long gone.

But it does not really matter, because there is only one acceptable answer to the question anyways: "I'm good." Or maybe: "Fantastic." I talked to a guy from my study group about that. I asked him: "How do you guys ever know how people are actually doing?" He explained his theory to me, that the US society is all about winning. He said people would not give it away if they had a bad day out of fear of being seen as a loser – "because noone wants to be friends with a loser, right?"

I'm also still working on keeping up with the politeness and friendliness of people here. Oftentimes, when I talk to someone after a class for a few minutes, they will say: "It was nice to meet you. Great to talk to you. We should hang out some time. Have a good one!", and my reaction is usually "Ok, bye!" (although I enjoy talking to people and would like to hang out, too). I can imagine people being used to "the American way" going away from our conversations thinking I was rude or did not like them. The same goes with compliments like "Great meeting, good work!" or "This is a really good discussion." I can hardly bring my unsmiling, stern self to that level of enthusiasm. We would probably have to solve world hunger in a group meeting and I would still say: "Alright, we made some progress..."

Makes me think of a Swabian proverb my Mom often used: "Id g'schimpft isch g'lobt gnuag.", which translates to "Not ranting is praise enough." I guess, Mom is not always right after all: saying nice things and hearing nice things from time to time really doesn't hurt – believe it or not, it actually feels quite good.

On the other hand, I am getting suspicious of all the compliments I am getting: Did I actually become the loveliest person in the world in the past month? Or are these people telling me that "it's a pleasure to meet" me or that they had "such a great conversation" with me maybe not entirely serious?

I'll leave the answer to you and end with a clever quote of my African-American Studies professor: "We are using the same words, but that does not necessarily mean we are all using the same language."