Politeness survey 2006 by Readers Digest Mumbai the worst city?

New Zealand
March 8, 2007 11:00pm CST
Hi friends, I am new to mylot, not sure whether this topic has been discussed before or not. Many of you might be aware of the survey conducted by Readers Digest magazine about the politeness index of different cities in the world. More information is available on their site: http://rd.com/content/openContent.do?contentId=27599&pageIndex=0 The survey involved simple tests like saying thank you, if a person drops news paper then seeing if a passerby can list these and hand it over the the person etc... New York came on top with rating 80% and Mumbai (Bombay) the least polite with a rating of 32% What do u think about the 'litmus tests' used for the survey? Can all people of different cultures be judged on the same criteria?
1 response
coffeechat
@coffeechat (1961)
• New Zealand
10 Mar 07
The survey itself was rather revealing when it appeared in the RD a couple of months ago, and having actually been to most of these cities surveyed, we can only concur with most of the findings. Surprises for us were Stockholm, Auckland, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. We were surprised that these cities have figured as low as they have. The biggest surprise of all is the New York figures as number one on the list. Having been to New York several times, it does not feel quite right - lol! Bombay is no surprise, the way people drive is quite reflective of how the city actually is in terms of politeness. While certain aspects of courtesy may have cultural variants, the underlying principles are universal.