Whilst waiting for a copy of "A Colour Atlas of Poultry Diseases - An Aid for Farmers and Poultry Professionals (2007)" to turn up I had an idea.

A scheme for greetings cards that actually speak the truth - which British people are not very good at.

So, a way was found to tell the truth without giving offence to the recipient, seeing as no ever checks the QR codes.....

Exhibit A is the prototype Happy Birthday card.
-- not_morrison_rm, Apr 29 2018

Exhibit A https://drive.googl...Y9sz9CJ3vDjro9NxbH8
[not_morrison_rm, Apr 29 2018]

China daily article http://www.chinadai...ontent_18505127.htm
[not_morrison_rm, Apr 29 2018]

Oh bugger, I accidentally overwrote your erudite comment...hence giving myself a -1 for not paying attention.

Hmmm, dunno...is it small island/many people courtesy or something to dealing with being lumbered with a Judaeo/Christian black and white outlook, unlike Asian faiths which are more at home with many levels of grey, as it were?

There are times you want to say "you daft old biddy, you drive us up the wall, but we all still love you".
-- not_morrison_rm, Apr 29 2018


Hmm. Do you have examples from non-English cultures that are more truthful?
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 29 2018


America? Only kidding.

I'd guess Russia would be a starting point. China Daily (by a Russian writer) "Another thing which people don't understand is that, while it seems that Russians are yelling at each other and aggressively talking, Russians just talk loudly to one another. We are very blunt and honest people, and when my foreign friends and I talk, sometimes we can be too blunt and they will take offense at that. "
-- not_morrison_rm, Apr 29 2018


That doesn't quite match what I heard from someone who worked in Russia for some years (and is fluent in Russian). She told me that, although Russians are as demonstrative, emotionally, as Italians, yet they manage at the same time to be as cagey with actual concrete infornation as Chinese. I suspect that spending generations in a succession of police states will do that to you.
-- pertinax, Apr 29 2018


People out of Russia (which is not exactly the same as Russians) routinely had to be told (back in the 80s and 90s to smile at people at work for instance.

We also tended to think that Americans wear fake smiles.

It would also be cliche that when asked "How are you", a typical Soviet emigree, prior to immersion, would not answer great, how are you, but would either ask why do you care, or, if they trusted you, tell you about the things that are wrong in their life.

I suspect that, in part due to much more limited mobility back in the USSR, we culturally value childhood friends more than typical Western cultures, and I've certainly seen evidence for that in my own life versus the life of my children who were born in the States. So the article overstates some things but rings true.
-- theircompetitor, Apr 29 2018



random, halfbakery