Monday, October 3, 2011
Minnesota Nice
A body practice that I never really noticed before untill a friend from out of state brought it up was opening or holding doors for complete strangers. My friend said that no one in Ariona where he is from, holds open doors for others like Minnesotans do. Then I came to think of it, I will, at times, go out of my way to hold a door open for a complete stranger. What I mean by holding open the door is keeping it open for the next person as I pass through it. My friend was fascinated by how people in Minnesota will stand in the doorway holding the door open till the person is able to reach the door and then walk in. Thinking of this I can recall standing in a doorway to a store or restruant holding the door partly open for an akward amount of time till the person behind me is able to reach the door. Then I watched other people do it to. It was funny to see how people would do whatever they could to make sure that the door was still open for the person behind them. In one instance I saw a guy stand for at least 10 seconds holding the door partly open waiting for the next person to reach it and then another guy who didnt notice the person behind him but when he did he was quite far through the doorway but completely turned around and stretched out to touch the door with his fingertips so that the door was partly cracked open for the person behind him. I found this practice to be quite interesting, holding the door doesn't really benefit the person you are holding the door for besides maybe saving them a couple seconds in time. It's just a nice gesture that helps give Minnesotans the "Minnesota Nice" sterotype.
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I always learned about "Minnesota nice" in elementary school being that I'm from this state. I never really notice it when I'm around home-I tend to assume that our "polite" gestures are simply universal. I went to Florida over spring break a couple years ago and when I smiled and greeted someone walking towards me on the sidewalk they looked at me as if I was tripping on a certain illicit substance! Here we are trained to not only hold doors, but to greet even complete strangers with a smile and a wave or to make polite conversation with the checkout lady at Cash Wise. Something that seems so routine to me can apparently throw someone from a different culture off completely!
ReplyDeleteMy sister in law was talking about this the other day, because of her recent trip to burning man. A guy she was talking to there thought burning man was so awesome because people seemed genuinely interested and smiled at each other as they walked by. She was caught a little off guard that it wasn't a common occurrence, since Minnesotans are so nice. Then my brother(her husband) chimed in that he hates the Minnesota nice. He went over stories of him getting trapped in elevators with the door closing repeatedly because he was stuck in conversation with random people. It seems that even though he feels compelled to be polite to people, he hates it at the same time. It's kind of funny to watch him follow the practice and actively denounce it at the same time, since he probably didn't even realize what a walking contradiction he was making himself into.
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