[Menydh]

Originally Posted by wilpuri

Sure, compared to the more flamboyant southern characteristics, we are shy and reserved, but I like it that way. I feel very uncomfortable when people I don't know come up to my face, talk loud and gesticulate wildly, making physical contact.

That, if applied to all Southern Europeans, is much of a generalisation. Even with Italians, many gesticulate moderately.

I used to have much fun with Italians when I realized that the more you got on their nerves, the more that they gesticulated. So I enjoyed provoking them to the point that they looked like windmills.

Admittedly, after a time among them I even got to the point of gesticulating when speaking. But here, I would probably do it only unadvertedly if speaking with a foreigner, as if I tried to make him understand with signs what I assume that he would not understand with just words. Sort of what you would do to communicate with a native if you were in Africa.

It is a funny world, when you deal with foreigners. Once, one of my brothers was speaking to a Brit, in English, and he would do it slowly, stopping at each word and syllable. Later, the Brit told me that it was funny, because he sounded retarded speaking in that slow motion. I told him that it was actually because my brother thought that he was not very bright, that he spoke to him in a slow motion like you would do with a retard.


p.s. by the way, the silent and cold looking attitude is not only characteristical of Northern Europeans. Ever been to Africa?