Comment by DoreenMichele
2 years ago
The formal terms for this difference are high context culture and low context culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-context_and_low-context_c...
"Guess" culture would correspond to high context culture. You need to have a lot of shared context -- or be able to read a lot of clues to the context -- to infer what was really meant as a means to be adequately polite.
"Ask" culture would correspond to low context culture. It is often characterized as "rude" by outsiders but is also pro-diversity, such as New York City and American military culture.
Some people can navigate either type of culture, assuming they know what type of culture they are dealing with. Others assume the world works one way or the other and default to whichever one they grew up with, most likely.
A common example of this is the US servicemen that had come back from tours of Iraq or Afghanistan telling stories of how lovely and "welcoming" the locals were.
E.g.: the locals would make a token offer to the soldiers, expecting them to politely refuse.
The Americans would take that offer at face value and accept, to the surprise of the locals.
Someone from I think maybe Iran told an anecdote once on HN about visiting home with someone and eventually telling people "Don't offer him anything. He doesn't know how to say no."
Sounds like he lost his Persian sense of Tarof, lol. https://youtu.be/XAvzW1WZsN4
Whereas in Turkey if you're offered tea it's impolite to refuse. If you finish it, they will keep topping it up.
Indeed, in many cultures like Turkey and in my experience of India, people will insist that you take something, not expecting you to decline at all. It is seen as almost disrespectful or insulting to the host to decline, unless you explain a reason or decline after multiple times of asking.
The world does work one way; you ask for what you want. Even the “guessers” are asking for what they want eventually, when they’re sufficiently embarrassed…