cultural differences

I am about to make a gross generalisation so please don't shoot me down. A lot of Kiwi's (N.Zers) complain that Indian shop owners in New Zealand are unfriendly. There is not a lot of chit chat or making friends. I personally know our Indian shop owners well and they are friendly but I have also encountered some times where there has not been a hello and everything was very business like and to the point. We as Kiwis find that strange, as usually you will at least have eye contact and say hi.

The other day I was talking with a friend who is now living in N.Z but is of Indian origin. He was saying that he found it hard when he first came to N.Z because he went to a shop or the bank to get a job done and the sales person would want to have a chat with him. He thought it was odd because he had come to buy something or do some banking and not make friends. He realised that because of the huge population in India, things need to be done in matter of fact way and so you would all just do the job and move on but in N.Z there was not the same large population so people had time to ask how you were etc.

It made me realise the cultural difference going on here. The shop owners were not being rude, they were acting in a manner that they are accustomed to . "Lets just get the job done." ( again, please excuse the generalisations)

When we were in India I did not notice this personally as I found the shop owners to be very friendly and helpful. Maybe that was because I was a foreigner. It is an interesting concept though. It is very easy to jump to conclusions about a race of people and label them as friendly or unfriendly but sometimes there is a cultural reason for behavior that we are not aware of.

I am only basing this by what one Indian person has told me. He may be wrong, I don't know.
I guess the point is that we all behave according to what we know and it is good to be aware of these differences. The bank tellers in India may not be impressed if I start chatting away to them. I guess it is something I will suss out once we are there.