[Mageia-discuss] Cultural difference: "Let your yes be yes" <---> "It is rude to say no"

[Marja van Waes]

On 13/07/2012 08:42, Wolfgang Bornath wrote:
> All this leaves me wondering open-mouthed. Wondering how people yould
> manage their daily lives when they don't want to use a clear negative
> answer to a question where "yes" and "no" would cause different
> consequences.
>
> Marjy, if I'd ask you "Would it be ok when I come visiting next week?"
> I need a valid answer because if you say "yes" I will buy a ticket and
> hop on the train next monday. And I'd be very surprised if I will
> knock on your door and you are not there because you said "yes" just
> out of being polite.
>

No fear. You're welcome, the guest room is free and the owner of this 
house agrees.
However, I might be gone for up to 30 hrs next week, because I might 
have to accompany an elderly relative to hospital. You won't feel lost 
then, there are a lot of nice people living in this area ;)

>I still don't think it is rude to reply "no" where
> "no" is the correct answer. Actually I find it quite rude to give the
> other the impression of being ready to do something while I have not
> the slightest intention to really do it.

What I was trying to get across, is that learning that saying "no" is 
not evil, can take very many years. If you are raised in such a culture, 
it means you are programmed that way. You can't reboot yourself and boot 
into the "it is OK to say "no"" mode.

It took me very many years (it was a gradual process) to really learn it.

I don't see how someone else could achieve this in a split second.

It can even be worse, I know of a Chinese woman (a very bright one, 
besides that: she has studied in the West and speaks English very well) 
who works in the IT and who went to great lengths to do something her 
mentor told her to do (that is what she thought, in spite of all the 
time she had spent in the West and in spite of all the time she had 
already been working for a Western company) what he never asked of her 
(in his western mind).

But I'll put that in another thread, that is another cultural difference