Differences - Volume

Disclaimer: I would like to highlight a few cultural differences between Slovaks and Americans so that I can remember in the years to come and so that others can learn more about the country we are living in. The point of this is not to critique, but simply to point out the differences. One of the things we have to remember as we become accustomed to a new cultural norm, is that different does not necessarily mean bad. Just because something is done differently than we are used to does not necessarily make it wrong. As a matter of fact, some ways of doing things may actually be better - or at least better in that culture. So as I write these, please don't take them as a criticism of either culture.

The first difference I'd like to cover is volume, most particularly verbal volume. I never necessarily thought that Americans had a higher verbal volume, though of course I would meet those occasional people who seemed to express themselves at a higher decibel. After arriving in Slovakia, I realized that American volume and Slovak volume are different. Although we live in a village or small town where the houses are in many cases only feet apart, you rarely hear your neighbors. We hear dogs, birds, chickens, and traffic noise, but not much human noise. This isn't to say we never hear it, but it is not as often or as common as you would expect in this type of living environment. Even when you see young people walking down the street, you don't hear yelling or raucous laughing. They certainly talk, and even laugh, but their goal is not to make sure every house on the street knows they are walking by.

We soon realized even our children seemed loud in comparison. I always thought our children were pretty quiet and reserved in restaurants and stores, but we've had to work on volume with them. Of course we have a double whammy because a child talking more loudly (than they're used to), in English, attracts even more attention as you stroll the aisles at the store. All we have to do is open our mouths and immediately heads turn. So we're all working on lowering our volume to not only blend in better, but also to attract a little less attention. It takes some getting used to, but I think we're all getting it.

We've been around other Americans a few times and we are quickly reminded of the volume difference as we hear them walking down the street or laughing. Now this isn't to say that Americans are rudely loud. When you are in a culture where everyone else's volume is the same, you aren't loud. Or at least you don't stand out as loud. You fit into the cultural norm. When you enter a culture that has a lower volume, you suddenly stand out as obnoxiously loud, though this is most probably not the intent at all.

When we re-enter American culture, it may take us a while to get accustomed to the volume of verbal interaction.