Gone are the days when you had to ask a perfect stranger to take your photograph.
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Gosh, wouldn’t want to actually speak to a foreigner would one? Avoid talking to them altogether, right?
Yoiks!
But if you seek to deepen your experience and learn more about what it’s like to live in a part of this planet you don’t know, try these:
(Know this: folks may even invite you home to really show and tell the answers!)
“What is your greeting and goodbye here? I would love to try saying it.”
“If we only had one day here where would you take me?”
“If you only had one day in my town, what would you like to see?”
“What do you dislike about your countrymen and women?”
“What do you dislike most about Americans?”
“What is the word for funny bone here? (I’m collecting them from every language and culture I contact.)
“What’s a big difference between here and American culture?”
“What do you think we don’t we get about you?”
So who asks questions like this?
Folk journalists, that’s who. The key? Model the practitioners of extreme curiosity who play upon their fellow Americans. Steve Allen and Mal Sharpe, originally radio guys with a microphone who moved to television, were known on their broadcast logs as “MOS” – Man on the Street. And if you have no gift for the small talk, you’re not alone. Still, everyone is trying, dying for conversation. Oddball worldviews (see Steve Allen, Mal Sharpe*) can not only draw everyone into conversation — hey they can even improve your outlook on life.
FIVE WITTY BANTERINGS: Things To Say When You’ve Got Nothing
“I read that elephants carry on various kinds of conversation.” This practice is known as referring to something you saw on PBS. In other words, a surefire method of directing your convo to television. Here you and your partner can get lost for hours. “They dance, too! They showed elephants doing an end zone dance to celebrate a group activity. Amazing huh?”
“I got a new scammer – I mean scanner.” This practice is known as: saying things that you heard wrong and then correcting yourself once you’ve gotten attention. Another example of this is: “Do you smell a smunk?”or “Man, you got a one-hack mind.”
If reaching out to bother someone seems like too much work and you really want to chillax like a pal, try sprinkling yon saucy sentences with the likes of: “It’s so funny, the things you remember.”(FILL IN OWN MEMORY HERE)
“’Tell the truth. But tell it slant.’ Dorothy Parker said that.” (Yes, it is cool to have a Dorothy Parker quote at the ready.)
* LINK to Man on the Street’s Mal Sharpe: http://www.coyleandsharpe.com
Talking about how tired and stressed you are from work is reprehensible and not an acceptable form of conversation.
Mindy Kaling