Hungarian Culture of Complaint
English speaking Hungarians often respond to questions like “How are you?” with a stream of complaints. They are not people in despair; this is simply how you are expected to react to such questions in Hungarian.
You complain about yours and let your partner complain about theirs; this is our version of “how’s it going?”. It is as empty as the Anglo-Saxon formality, you don’t care about the other’s problems and don’t expect to be listened to.
If you run a business, you are always supposed to complain, even if you are about to go on the Stock Exchange and spend the rest of your life banging ex-models on a yacht on the Carribean. Unfortunately, the so-called positive thinking has infected some of the Hungarian business people, so they smile and are very sure everything is ok. They are considered to be boastful and even stuck up by some. True, they should damn well respect the Hungarian culture of complaint.
August 28th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
True… Hungarian are the olympic champions in complaining. I don’t understand the language, but the intonation tells the story. I think it is just their cahracter, they don’t mean anything bad with it.