Amazing

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Amazing
by Michael on Saturday 19/Apr/2008, @10:35

Tetraphobia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraphobia

Never ever heard about this before. Interesting read. This shows what unexpected pitfalls there can be when marketing a product globally. Nevertheless IMO the tolerance to "strange" behaviour is quite high if I know someone is from a different country. For instance often at trade fairs I find people from the US starting a conversation with me extremely informally "Hi, how you're doing...", standing very close in front of me etc - as if I already knew them. If a fellow German I don't yet know would come to me saying "Na, wie gehts?" or sth. like that I would consider this a bit unpolite but I immediately associate this to the different background so after initial confusion I smile about this and don't really care. Probably they are laughing about me as well because I'm so uptight ;-) All those so-called experts warning you about things you shouldnt do are often missing this point IMO. What is rude from a local can be a bit strange but not so bad at all from a foreigner. So, I hope Japanese will not be too angry at possible tourists appearing with a #4 on their shirt.

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Re: Amazing
by Ian Monroe on Sunday 20/Apr/2008, @20:38

Yea, US English doesn't get more formal then 'Hi, how are you doing" without sounding silly.

Well cultural stuff is always fairly easy to figure out in person. Marketing is different, so the 4 question was fair enough.

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