Watching the Russians?

November 12, 2014 11:58 AM

What's the Russian equivalent of Watching the English? What about for other nationalities too?
posted by devnull to Writing & Language (6 answers total)

I haven't read that book but What Every Russian Knows (And You Don’t) by Olga Fedina is a wonderful book that looks similar and that you might enjoy. My Russian teacher (a native Russian) thought it looked authentic.
posted by WantOyster at 12:33 PM on November 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

For China, the rather literally named 101 Stories for Foreigners to Understand Chinese People has some similarities, being a book based around anecdotes rather than an etiquette book. The "Culture Shock" series of books (here is the Russia one) are variable in style, but with more of a practical flavour of "here is how to get on as a foreigner in this country" rather than the chattiness of Watching the English.
posted by Jabberwocky at 3:01 PM on November 12, 2014

Cultural Misunderstandings: The French-American Experience is in the same ballpark.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 3:35 PM on November 12, 2014

For Russia, I highly recommend Genevra Gerhart's books The Russian's World and The Russian Context.
posted by languagehat at 5:08 PM on November 12, 2014

The UnDutchables is the equivalent for the Netherlands.
posted by neushoorn at 2:09 AM on November 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Bravo for the question!

A bit more on the English - I really enjoyed the exhibit and the shows from Grayson Perry, also examining English class system: In the Best Possible Taste (link to channel 4, which is somewhat possible to watch online?).
posted by olya at 5:19 PM on November 13, 2014