There Is a Time to Sow and a Time to Reap You Do It Again Elevation Worship

The final fourth dimension I went to America, I stopped in at a café for a coffee. While waiting for my carte to go through, the woman backside the counter smiled and said, "What are your plans for the weekend?"

And I said, "Uh, I dunno."

"The weather condition is dainty, huh?"

"Sure is," I replied.

This is an example of small talk. It's the mouth's version of drumming its fingers.

An attempt to do small talk in Russia

Back in Russia, I met my friend Elena for coffee.

"Why did yous write that if you talk to Russiansthey might want to murder and eat you?" she asked.

"They do! When you endeavor to talk to them with small talk."

"Not true," she said.

"Yes it is, especially with strangers."

She shook her caput and rolled her eyes at me.

"Right, then like when you're in line at the shop, if I were to randomly commencement talking to you about something dumb, like if I started telling you about my twenty-four hour period and how much I liked your blouse or the weather."

"No one would practise that," she said.

I laughed. "Oh, oh yes, in America they do."

She looked at me, suspicious, equally though I'd just said, "You know in America, people eat their own toes with ketchup."

The thing is, the only fourth dimension a stranger has always volunteered something random to me on the streets of Russian federation, it was a nice old blind woman who said, "Oh, aren't you a handsome boy" earlier turning to the air beside my face and proverb "...and you also."

What Russians remember about small-scale talk

I asked a few Russians what they thought about small talk and received responses like:

"I personally hate small talkers - why they are talking to me? Are they really interested in my mood? Tin't they discover out the weather on the internet? Are they going to ask some favor from me? Only go away or say what y'all want direct!"

And:

"Russians don't actually see the indicate of talking about obvious and bland things, it's only tiresome to us and is not a part of our civilization."

Another Russian I spoke to thinks geography influences small talk: "Location means a lot," he said. "I recall that information technology's all about the weather: you just don't talk much where you only see snowfall and darkness for eight months. You can talk endlessly where the sunday is shining all the time and the vino is costless of charge."

The verdict seemed grim.

Only I didn't desire to just have people'south give-and-take for it, and so I decided to become out and endeavour out some modest talk on Russians. In that location'south a shop downwards the road with a fiddling café stand in it where I get my morning coffee. The shopkeepers know me, when I walk in 1 will say, "Hello my friend," and the other, "How are you lot?" merely conspicuously doesn't expect a response. So, while waiting for my java I turned to the human backside the counter and said in Russian, "So, the conditions today, huh?"

He frowned at me, and so looked over my shoulder at the pissing rain and icy sidewalks of St. Petersburg in Jump and said:

"F*ck the weather "

"Are y'all talking to me?"

I did this in front of my friend Ivan at a café. The lady behind the counter had simply handed me my latte and I said, "It'south going to be a overnice weekend, any plans?"

She directly-upward ignored me and I turned to find Ivan frowning. "Are you talking to me?" he asked.

"No, I was trying to have small-scale-talk, you know, only talk with the barista."

"Just you have a girlfriend?"

"What? Yes, no, just small talk, you know, talk near something completely useless for the sake of engaging in chat."

He thought about it for a bit and and so on the walk back to my place he said, "Sometimes I wish there was smaller talk, my friends are always talking about such philosophical things." And so he added, "But information technology does happen sometimes, in the shop the other day I about forgot to buy a lighter for my cigarettes and the woman behind the counter told me about how all forenoon she needed a lighter simply couldn't detect a working i and she believed she was cursed. Is this mutual in America?"

I said, "Aye, peculiarly in the south. And very often when I'1000 in shops conversations will go stuck up most the weather condition, or the news, or some-such nonsense."

"Peradventure, it's so lonely people can hide improve. If you're all talking all of the fourth dimension, then how would you lot know who is lonely?"

Large talks

If there are Russians who enjoy small talk, I haven't met them.

On the opposite, Russians similar big and sometimes very personal talk - you might run into a Russian, particularly on the railroad train or in a bar, and within a few hours exist as thick every bit thieves.

I came beyond this in my quest for small talk in the muddy Pushkin Bar. I was choosing a beer. There was only one other human being in the place besides the bartender and he stood at the counter and watched me. Now, in America, I might turn to the man and say, "How's information technology going?" and he would nod, grin and say something like, "Not bad, not bad, some weather condition nosotros're having." And I'd say, "Aye."

But when I turned to this human, who I later (much afterwards) learnt was named Tim, and said, "How's it going?" something very different happened.

5 hours later I was sabbatum at the birthday political party of Tim'southward best friend in a place he referred to every bit "a Soviet bar." I knew that Tim's father had been a full general in the military and that many people effectually boondocks respected his family unit for his father's service. I knew that Tim could recite Shakespeare, considering he did, and that his mother had left his male parent when he was very young and moved into her own apartment and that his male parent had died. I knew that he still lived with his mother and that surely, she'd love me and surely, I was welcome for dinner and to stay the night. Oh, and past the way, my name is Tim.

The thing is that small talk isn't a manner of talking to someone, it's talking at them - there is no depth or purpose to it; it is like an awkward loftier school trip the light fantastic to the last 30 seconds of a bad vocal with no rhythm. It is boring, and Russians tend to be anything but boring. Later, as I walked along the street with an inebriated Tim, he began telling me about his time in New York City earlier we were stopped by an older adult female.

"Female parent!" Tim cried.

"This is my mother."

The woman glared at me and so grabbed Tim past his jacket.

"You lot fool, what are you doing walking effectually in this cold. And you're drunk!!" she cried at him, and so wrapped his scarf tighter around his neck. Tim swayed a fleck, before breaking loose to go vomit into the snowbank.

I looked at his mother, she at me.

I felt bad-mannered. I said, "So, uh, the weather, huh?"

She frowned, "F*ck the weather."

Benjamin Davis , an American writer living in Russia, explores various topics, from the pointless to the profound, through conversations with Russians. Last time he explores what do Russians call up of Trump. Adjacent time he will explore gun ownership in Russia. If you have something to say or desire Benjamin to explore a particular topic, write us in a comment department below or write usa on Facebook .

If using any of Russia Across's content, partly or in full, e'er provide an agile hyperlink to the original material.

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Source: https://www.rbth.com/lifestyle/330182-small-talks-weather-russia

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