While in Denmark, I learned that people abroad view Americans as being “fake friendly” and too self-conceited. Hearing these stereotypes for the first time surprised me because I hadn’t at all thought about them before. If anything, I assumed Americans were seen as rude.
The “fake friendliness” seems to come largely from language. They found it so weird that we almost always ask “how are you” when greeting another person, regardless of our relationship with them. They also recognize that we ask, but don’t really care. In contrast, Danes only ask “how are you” (hvordan går det) when truly checking in with a close friend. Because they perceive of this habit to be superficial, they interpret it by stereotyping Americans as friendly, but with shallow relationships. I even got the impression that this difference leads them to question the genuineness of any American they may talk to.
Second, Danes are very humble, while Americans do not look too poorly upon self-congratulation. For example, DIS (study abroad provider) awards one student from every department an Achievement Award every semester. However, they never announce who this person is to the rest of the department. Rather, if you won, you and the instructor are the only ones to know. In talking to my instructor about this, I learned that the award itself is very un-Danish, but the program found that in teaching American students, they needed a competitive incentive to encourage academic effort. I think the self-congratulatory stereotype is present in all representations of American culture – news, movies, television, etc. – because it’s connected to our pervasive valuation of individualism. And I don’t think our current president is representing any challenge to that idea…
I think that the idea of being “fake friendly” coming from our language use is very interesting and I hadn’t thought about it before. After reading your response, I thought about it and I realized that almost every time I see anyone we ask each other “how are you?” and usually the answer is a very quick “Good. What about you?” Though, if it’s a closer relationship we will elaborate on why we feel good, or say how we really feel (if it’s something other than “good”) and why. I also think it’s interesting how this ingrained habit can lead to others questioning the genuineness of Americans in all other aspects of their relationship, though I can see why others view it as a sign of shallowness.
It is interesting to think of these cross-cultural dynamics in terms of the core cultural values we have discussed in class. How can a country’s core cultural values influence its perception of other country’s? In the case of Denmark and the US, I wonder if this stereotype of “fake friendliness” has anything to do with Denmark being a slightly lower context society than the US, and consequently are much more explicit and intentional in their interactions.