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Post by whatagain on Oct 8, 2017 23:18:30 GMT
A lady gaga would have a poker face !
Amboseli i mislead you. The secretary was Dutch and she was answering my call - she was the secretary of the guy i was calling. Of course had she been Flemish she would have spoken at least 3 to 5 languages !
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Post by mich64 on Oct 8, 2017 23:25:51 GMT
It took me a very long time to be able to have any facial expressions. From what I understand by your description, I might have been quite successful at poker during that time, if I knew how to play.
In speech therapy it took me a long time to look at myself in the mirror, but with their help and doing daily exercises, this has greatly improved.
Even now when I get nervous, anxious or panicked I lose expressions, I can feel it happening, terrifies me. It happened 3 times on our holiday.
But, I seen a picture of myself from our holiday and it brought me to tears (good tears), I was smiling like I had not seen myself do in 11 years.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 9, 2017 1:34:20 GMT
It is interesting that we are talking about facial expressions, since they are a form of language.
I have been told that deaf people think hearing people look very wooden because to their eyes we show so little animation when we talk to each other.
Mich, if this isn't a nosy question: has your husband been able to read your expression even when other people might have thought you were not showing any expression?
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Post by bjd on Oct 9, 2017 6:02:27 GMT
Along with this interesting discussion, I wonder whether people show more or less animation in their faces according to their cultures. To be simplistic for example, Swedes are famously rather wooden-faced even during humourous situations while Italians gesture and have more facial expressions when they talk.
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Post by onlyMark on Oct 9, 2017 7:33:25 GMT
There are involuntary movements which are fairly common throughout cultures - often called microgestures/microexpression. Other than that, why do you think the term "inscrutable Japanese" came from? Westerners couldn't read their faces and conversely, Westerners were thought to be childlike because of what was felt to be over-exaggeration of emotions. Just like children.
I love the subject of body language. I love also seeing how small gestures vary between cultures. Different greetings, handshakes, saying yes and no by movement rather than verbally (e.g. Indian head nod/shake), touching, not touching, spaces between people when conversing etc etc. Fascinating. As part of some training I did a talk for an hour on body language and the like. Enjoyed researching into it.
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Post by bjd on Oct 9, 2017 8:43:28 GMT
Speaking of touching/not touching: an Argentinian colleague and friend spent a year in Baltimore, USA, with his wife and daughter who was then about 9 or 10. One day the parents were called in by the school principal and were told that their daughter shouldn't touch her friends. What was acceptable in Argentina was not in the States.
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Post by onlyMark on Oct 9, 2017 8:59:21 GMT
In the news the last few days is the story of an English man in Dubai who has been arrested for public decency because, in a busy night club, he touched the hip of a Jordanian man to let him know he wanted to come past.
When we lived in Egypt and Jordan, Mrs M and I were very careful about "PDF's". E.g. when one of us had been away and we met at the airport to get picked up, we would shake hands. More as a piss take than anything else.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 9, 2017 9:49:46 GMT
I learned that one of the problems between Arab and Western culture is that in Arabic culture, people stay very close together for a conversation and have much less of a personal no-go zone. So an Arab speaking to you will often keep leaning closer to you while you try to back away, giving quite negative signals.
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Post by whatagain on Oct 9, 2017 10:06:27 GMT
I had a boss who invaded my privacy zone when discussing. On top of that he ate a smelly cheese at lunch. Apart from that a very nice chap.
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Post by onlyMark on Oct 9, 2017 10:53:52 GMT
"Courtesy of the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology"
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Post by onlyMark on Oct 9, 2017 11:15:32 GMT
A small story - I was with a company and we had to have a display at various exhibitions in London. At the end of the 5 days there was an exhibitors party. Our company consisted of half a dozen people and we were standing around together chewing the fat about body language, how too use it to sell better and in general. A couple of them weren't convinced it was that important and it was the words used in a conversation that were more so. So me being the smart arse had a bet with them. Across the floor from us were two women and a man. I bet that if I approached them, within two minutes I would be left alone with one of the women and they could specify which woman. They chose the dark haired one. I was not to say anything to them about this, just have a general conversation about the exhibition etc. Within two minutes a cheer went up from those in my group as the man and the other women walked away.
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 9, 2017 11:24:39 GMT
For mich:
"chewing the fat" = talking
But maybe you know this one since the term is rumoured to have Inuit origins.
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Post by mossie on Oct 9, 2017 14:37:50 GMT
Mark., that is a fascinating graph on personal space. But surely real intimate distance should be a minus number??
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Post by onlyMark on Oct 9, 2017 15:03:31 GMT
It depends where you measure from, how soft the mattress is and who is on top.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Oct 9, 2017 15:41:51 GMT
I think that I am guilty of stepping inside peoples' personal space and I realise that this can be socially awkward if not downright unpleasant for the more reserved among us. It is normal for me to link arms with friends or family when walking with them and I probably shouldn't take it so far with new acquaintances
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Post by mich64 on Oct 9, 2017 16:19:24 GMT
Bixa, yes, my husband was able to know how I was feeling without expressions most of the time but I think that is because we know each other so well. He was able to explain changes to me that I did not even realize had happened.
Kerouac, thank you for the explanation of the words chewing the fat. What also is confusing to the doctors is that tomorrow I will not remember it. But it helpful for me when the conversation is happening. I will remember the next day some of the conversation I had with someone, but if you were to ask me those same words again, I am just as confused as the day before. They think it is because of the concrete way I think and that I have little to no abstract thought.
I am always in peoples' personal space, my instinct is to hug everyone.
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Post by whatagain on Oct 9, 2017 19:18:36 GMT
Mich and cherry the good news is that we adapt to people invading our personal space. One if my best friend us such an invader and a touchy one. Whenever we meet he hugs and takes my arm or whatever. I got used to it and play along the same game.
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Post by questa on Oct 9, 2017 22:41:33 GMT
I have been told that Ozzies expect more personal space than most and get uncomfortable if people stand too close. The reason was given as we had more open space environmentally and tend to spread out to fill it.
Anyone else notice this?
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Post by kerouac2 on Oct 9, 2017 22:50:54 GMT
Frankly, I highly doubt that theory. In totally empty zones, people like to stick together for safety, wherever the campfire is and also the cooking pot. However, it's true that houses are often too big in Australia, the United States and Canada, just because you can.
If ever people start to take environmental protection seriously, houses should shrink in size again.
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Post by lagatta on Oct 10, 2017 1:10:02 GMT
My flat is not at all big but it is Edwardian - about 100 years old. Though I'm sure at leat 5 people lived here back then.
Oversized houses are a plague, and not even very pleasant.
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Post by bjd on Oct 10, 2017 5:46:11 GMT
As far as oversized houses go, in Canada they didn't use to be so huge. But when I look at the US Houzz website (thanks, Bixa!), I am constantly amazed at the sizes of American houses for small families, or even a couple. I remember one where a retired couple "downsized" to 280 sq meter
I rather have my doubts about Australian empty spaces pushing people to be more distant. After all, it's a country of immigrants, like Canada or the USA, and so there should be some influence brought by all the various cultures mixing together.
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Post by whatagain on Oct 10, 2017 6:17:18 GMT
I find it interesting to see how people fill trains. People will seat alone in rows of 2 and only when all the rows are occupied do we start to sit next to somebody. I wonder if it is the same everywhere. Well that is valid only when trains run which is not the case in Belgium today.
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Post by patricklondon on Oct 10, 2017 6:50:04 GMT
I have been told that Ozzies expect more personal space than most and get uncomfortable if people stand too close. The reason was given as we had more open space environmentally and tend to spread out to fill it. Anyone else notice this? I can't say I've noticed this particularly on my trips to Australia, but then I was mostly with people in the urban centres, rather than outback farmers on those vast remote stations. There is a lot of space in Australia as a whole, so a lot of properties are much roomier than I would be used to in the UK. But on the other hand, it's an old truism that if you look at population densitities, Australia is a sort of archipelago of human settlements strung out along the coastal strips. You might speculate, too, that historically there was a fair bit to be afraid of in getting too spread out in the wilderness (indeed, there were substantial physical barriers to doing so in the early days of European settlement there), and maybe that encouraged people to huddle together. My blog | My photos | My video clips My Librivox | "too literate to be spam"
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Post by bjd on Oct 10, 2017 11:13:05 GMT
I find it interesting to see how people fill trains. People will seat alone in rows of 2 and only when all the rows are occupied do we start to sit next to somebody. I wonder if it is the same everywhere. Well that is valid only when trains run which is not the case in Belgium today. That's certainly the way people fill long-distance buses in Canada. Probably less in public transport in cities.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 10, 2017 15:14:33 GMT
I have been told that Ozzies expect more personal space than most and get uncomfortable if people stand too close. The reason was given as we had more open space environmentally and tend to spread out to fill it. Anyone else notice this? I don't know about people from Australia, but I was very surprised in England to find that people routinely stand noticeably closer when talking that what is normal for people from the US. It appeared to me that people considered it a sign of friendliness to step in closer once conversation was started. The reason I was surprised is because I've always heard that the English were reserved, didn't look at other people in elevators, etc. Since Americans are often typed as "friendly" or "brash", I fully expected to find the English frosty by comparison. Ha! Overall, I found them much more generally friendly and warm and definitely noticed that thing of standing closer. So, my theory was similar to that which Questa cites, i.e., because of an ingrained yearning for wide open spaces -- the "don't fence me in" mentality -- people from the US maintain a wider personal space.
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Post by mich64 on Oct 10, 2017 16:38:47 GMT
While there are certainly many new oversized homes in my city, I am noticing a new trend with the new builds this year. There are many smaller homes being built and I believe it is because the thinking is finally starting to unfold that our community is mostly becoming a retirement town so smaller homes are beginning to sell as people are downsizing into retirement. Whatever the reason, it is good to see smaller homes being built.
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Post by tod2 on Oct 12, 2017 14:59:16 GMT
It took me a very long time to be able to have any facial expressions. Even now when I get nervous, anxious or panicked I lose expressions, I can feel it happening, terrifies me. It happened 3 times on our holiday. But, I seen a picture of myself from our holiday and it brought me to tears (good tears), I was smiling like I had not seen myself do in 11 years. Mich, I would never never have guessed in a million years. You looked positively wonderful when we met in Venice!
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Post by mich64 on Oct 12, 2017 19:21:24 GMT
I prepared myself to meet you Tod. I was excited but not nervous or anxious because I felt like I knew you. You looked wonderful as well!
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Post by breeze on Dec 4, 2020 17:23:37 GMT
casimira, I think I learned here on anyport that Louis Prima was from New Orleans. We've never been to New Orleans (still waiting to hear how to pronounce it) but it's on our post-vaccine list. I appreciate your gracious offer of honorary citizenship. I can do the same for you in our tiny township in central PA. Less coveted than New Orleans, but best I can do.
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Post by casimira on Dec 4, 2020 17:46:06 GMT
Breeze, you are most welcome to our fair city when all this is over. It really is a charming place and I think you wold enjoy it. Just don't come in the summertime months which begin in late May and run right through September. October and November are really fine times of the year to visit as well as the Springtime months from March through mid May. As for the correct pronunciation of New Orleans I'm going to appeal to Bixa to do the phonetic pronunciation because she does it better than I could.
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