I went on a quick "last minute" trip to Germany last week to go see a friend who is currently studying abroad in the city of Mannheim. This post may be a bit off topic in regards to showing emotion in nonverbal behavior, but I noticed something during my visit that I found very interesting.I got to Germany at 6:30am last Wednesday morning. I had to catch a train from Frankfurt to Mannheim. I had some time to kill so I sat down on the left edge of a bench. It was a slow morning at the train station with not many people waiting for the next train and plenty of room to sit on many benches placed around the train station. Two middle aged girls come sit down, not only on my bench, but about a foot away from me. I found this a bit strange because there were so many other places ot sit.
I wasn't there long enough to sleep away any of the day so my buddy and I went straight into town to get breakfast. Mannheim isn't a big city but has a decent size downtown. Most of the transportation there is on foot because everything is so close to each other. As we were walking down the sidewalk I felt someone right behind me. They were so close I could hear them breathing. I once again found this very strange.
My friend has been living there for about three months now and said that the personal distance in the German culture is not as large as ours. That it was also something that he had to get used to.
This oost has to do more with proxemics than sharing emotion through nonverbal behavior but I found this very inetresting. In the States I would find this behavior strange and a bit rude, but over there it's normal.
Has anyone else traveled anywhere and noticed something like this?
wow, it is interesting to me that two different countries can mean that people can act completely different! I would definitely find that proximity behavior to be a bit odd and uncomfortable, too, since us Americans like our personal space! Hope Germany is a blast!
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