This is ABC of travelling in India. Never ask "is this the train to Pune"? Ask where the train is going instead. The answer to Y/N question is always yes in India, and that can mean anything between "I don't speak English" and "NO".

Asking open questions is a very good communication tactic in any country. In "yes" countries like India, Japan, China it's necessary. In other countries you often find out about whether your communication partner actually understood your question.

Don't ask "Did you finish task X". Ask "what did you do on task X?". What you see as finished and what the other person sees as finished might be separate things. Maybe you see 100% unit tested, reviewed and documented as finished, and the other person means feature complete, but untested, undocumented, not reviewed.

Open questions allow you to see what the other person understands. In some cases they might misunderstand your question entirely.

I absolutely agree, plus asking "How much of task X could you already do?" is perceived as less aggressive than "Did you finish task X already?".

it's part of the culture to be nice (to strangers) and NO is considered rude. brings a lot of funky and frustrating moments not only when travelling.

another is that strange indian head-shake that is so hard to reproduce - never figured it out completely, but it felt like when I eventually ask yes/no question and they say yes with that shake, it's actually more like no/don't know/maybe

Just make an 8 with your nose. :-)

The old bobble head :) I was there for a month, the whole country, and it's their form of agreement/understanding. Particularly when you're trying to teach them something.

The head bobble just means that they hear you. It does not mean yes or no or anything else really.

There are 3 different movements. One is for acknowledgement, other two are for yes and no.

I have heard so many people say "I am not sure" and i have heard so many people say "No" and i have also heard some people say No and this is how you have to get to your destination or get to your answer.

So you are 100% wrong when you say "The answer to Y/N question is always yes in India".

Which makes me doubt/ blindly ignore any of your opinion ever.

When I first became a manager, I had this really amazing mentor that explained to me a lot of the quirks of multiculturalism. I consider myself at least somewhat versed in other cultures, but I quickly learned there was a lot I didn't know about the mannerisms of people from India, China, Russia, etc.

What I find sad, is that there are a lot of people in positions of power that either have no idea (or don't care) that people from different parts of the world see things and respond differently than you'd expect and then get frustrated when the outcome is different than expected. I'd explain to them that it's a cultural thing, and they need to learn how to approach their questions/explanations differently. Most of the time I get this blank look like, "Why? Can't they just change?" and then go back to trying the same approach and calling their staff down, because they can't seem to understand why they are ineffective.

In my travels, I learned very quickly not to let that bother me, or else I would have gone nuts. I mean, the number of times somebody acted like I was an insane person because I started to eat X food with my hands instead of silverware, or silverware instead of hands. ("But in the last country I was in...!")

Fact is, you're the one choosing to be aware of and experience different cultures and travel, but they're not making that choice. And I had to conclude that they shouldn't need to make that choice if they don't want to. So I just sucked it up and would go along with the joke, "yeah us foreigners are such weirdos, ha!"

every foreigner is always a wierdo, thats wat makes this world so much fun and exciting.

foreigner by nation or state or city or apartment or school.

thanks for what might be my favorite HN comment ever ;)

>people from different parts of the world see things and respond differently than you'd expect and then get frustrated when the outcome is different than expected

I get your point, but the fact that Indians say "yes" to everything (i.e. the fact they lie constantly) is not something that managers should get used to, it's something Indians have to correct.

Saying "yes" to everything, as has been explained above, has more to do with different cultural definitions of "yes" than lying.

You ask me if it's going to rain, and I say yes, because I know with certainty it will rain tomorrow.

Is it fair for you to call me a liar because you carried around an umbrella today?

Indian here. We don't lie. If you ask me if I am a female, I'd obviously won't answer yes to that.

The problem is that it's considered rude to say no when asked to complete a task by a senior. So when you'd ask an Indian developer if he can complete a project in a week, he might say yes even though he's not sure if he can do it. What he would do is say yes, and then give his best try to complete it in a week. Only when he has failed to do so, he'd report his failure.

Basically, saying no is considered as insubordination/cowardice.

>has more to do with different cultural definitions of "yes" than lying

Thus the Windows dialogues which let you choose between "Yes" and "Yes" when localised to English-India.

>more to do with different cultural definitions of "yes" than lying.

I call poe.

>different cultural definitions of "yes"

https://i.imgur.com/gByDqFX.png

There's no 100% accuracy in weather forecasts so a mistake is understandable. Asking you if you finished your task and getting a "yes" when you haven't finished it is outright lying.

You're missing the metaphor by being pedantic.

I'll assume you're American (I am).

You know how in a healthy, well-led team, if your boss suggests a course of action that's wrong at a meeting and asks for feedback, you and I would pipe up and point out the issues with their approach?

In Asian cultures, my understanding is that would never happen. Instead, everyone would agree at the meeting, then feedback would be given privately to the boss if it were a major issue, and decision changed.

Which one's right? Eh, if they both result in an eventual good choice, does it matter?

If you feel strongly about "yes" being a lie, then bully to you and run with that. But that's kind of like boxing a glacier and expecting to win...

Its funny how you comment as if you know 100 % about Asian culture. Does one persons behavior define an entire continents culture for you?

Some people have worked in 16 diff teams in last 10 years and they have friends who have broader experience and they have super close conversation with managers, they don't go to agile rooms and draw something on the white board all the time and come out with no insights or progress after a hour or only have a skilled person come and give a direction in 5 minutes and nullify the whole one hour white board drawing.

I can tell for sure since i have been part of many such teams where we precisely point out any steps in the negative directions and offer tons of suggestions to improvize on the approach and most of the time come up with a way to gently impart some sense into the overseas managers who have no idea how to get what they want.

Your reasoning is so flawed because u didn't know when to use the word never, that doesn't mean your continents reasoning is flawed but i wish in hacker news there is a option to filter out certain people's comment globally forever.

> Asking you if you finished your task and getting a "yes" when you haven't finished it is outright lying.

That's incompetent management. The question should be reworded to avoid yes / no answers. "How much has been done?" would be a better question.

> i.e. the fact they lie constantly

I'm yet to discover a culture that doesn't do this, and the people from that culture are so inured to it they don't call it lying but "being polite".

As an example that would be widely understood by HN, Americans lie constantly when they ask "How are you doing?" - they really don't want to know how you are doing, and worse, you're expected to lie back with enthusiasm "I'm great!", even when you're not.

There certainly are many cultures (e.g. Eastern or Northern Europe) where the expected response to "How are you doing?" would be either a truthful description of the important problems in their life that they are currently concerned about or becoming creeped out because you're asking a rather private question and you aren't close enough so that it would be reasonable for them to tell you how they're actually doing, nor it would be reasonable for them to lie with "I'm great!" - i.e. where the question isn't appropriate to be used randomly by near-strangers.

Don’t you think imagining 1 billion people following exact same behavior is what you can easily imagine in case of India but cannot do that for USA ?

This. There are mannerisms, and there's outright lying. I'm sure those people know they're potentially wasting your time or even hurting you with false answers but they still go ahead.

It's reasonable to drop some phrases/mannerisms when you know some phrases are going to be taken literally or misinterpreted (while they shouldn't be). I can't remember of any examples about western norms right now, but I think asking "How are you?" as a greeting is not acceptable in some places, as it implies actually caring on how the person is doing or knowing them well.

I once heard from a US based colleague that he said “do X but don’t burn any bridges” to a teammate in China. That apparently once translated means the opposite of its Western meaning! An expensive mistake that was.

I've worked with people from Cognizant and sometimes I would get a plain "yes", other times a more helpful "Yes, I understood. Can you explain it again?".

If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later! Richard Branson

This is great advice but is contingent on learning how to do it. The rickshaw drivers in OP’s example didn’t complete that part.

I’ll add that this isn’t unique to India and there are lots of bullshitters in the world and in tech. I think the difference I’ve witnessed is that with more Indians than non-Indians I’ve worked with is that the acceptance is not deceptive or manipulative, it’s just neutral. Hard to describe, but I had one programmer who claimed to be great back during the Java days, not sure his cultural background, but he looked like a white guy from somewhere in America. He was lying to get the job and had fabulouser and fabulouser reasons for not being able to do it, until the lie crashed and we fired him.

This is very different from “Can you do tensorflow?” “Yes” ...check in for a week of “Yes” during daily huddles and then at the end nothing and still a “Yes, I can do it” with a perplexity of why I’m confused. Or also common the “I’ll check it in and say it works even though all tests fail and it doesn’t meet spec.”

The former is deception, the latter is sort of a disconnect with reality.

> ...back during the Java days...

The Java days are in the past for you? Must be nice...

This was both funny and sad

Years ago, a woman, a medic in one of the airborne divisions, told me that people in the military don't want to say that they don't know how to do something. I think this was in reference to two near-debacles, one scuba diving, one rock climbing, in one of which she had been the one that said "Sure, I know how to."

[edit: change "one said" to "one that said"]

Id have a pretty bad opinion about a person who would turn down an opportunity, especially those one's that require skills than can be learned easily.

"yes" this is true. Fear of failure is high and not knowing something is generally considered shameful.

I didn't realize this behavior was so common but I have noticed it in a few Indian tech people I have worked with state-side. Extremely frustrating when the answer to "Do you understand what you need to do now?" is "yes" then a few hours later you find them standing around looking confused. I had assumed it was a language barrier thing.

I believe it is similar in Vietnamese culture. When we work with them they often say yes only for us to find out later that they had no clue what to do.

I wonder if a service like UpWork could take this cultural knowledge into consideration and change their design? I often see jobs posted that are straight up impossible... and they get bids. Someone will post "I want everyone who sees my AdWords ad to automatically Like my Facebook page" and they'll get bids from offshore IT shops claiming they will deliver exactly that. Those posting the jobs are completely unaware that what they're asking for is impossible and borders on the nonsensical. I've always figured somehow educating those people might be the solution, but perhaps instead just presenting potential work situations differently to cultures who say 'yes' to everything including the ludicrous might help?

Seems common in Asia. I had the same experience in cambodia.

One example:

- I was very, very sick (Traveler's diarrhea) and we were about to embark for a 5 hours minivan trip with a guy without a driving license.

- 5 minutes before departure, I ask the organizer "do you have a vomit bag?"

- "Yes"

- I wait around a bit, but he carries on with his work and just ignore me

- "Sorry, did you have a bag, any bag? maybe a plastic bag, as I'm sick"

- "Yes"

- Now it's 30s before departure and I get pretty stressed as I have nothing should I need to throw up. So I ask him again, and he actually get pretty mad (with that asian "must not lose face" style though) and ignore me because I insisted and didn't just drop the issue (I didn't know what was going on at the time ...)

Sounds like "yes" means "I heard ya" or "ACK"

Even in China, and that's the biggest market there.

You have to adjust your questions. Always start the question with a W, and never with a Has or Is.

It's because asking for clarification is considered bad here, either you are an idiot or you are bothering others. So their best choice is to say 'yes' and try to figure things out later. That's why I always ask my colleagues how would they complete some tasks instead of "Can you do this?".

I can personally attest to this, having hired a small team of Vietnamese engineers to do some freelance hardware and firmware/OS-level work for me.

>>Sometimes a plain "I don't know" can be very helpful in achieving a goal.

In a country like India where opportunities are scarce, saying no in many cases can mean permanently losing the opportunity to do something big.

Saying 'yes' and failing is a lot more better than saying 'no' and not trying at all.

If I'm not wrong this isn't just limited to India. I think it was Richard Branson who said something to the order of never saying no to an opportunity. Always learn and do it.

> Saying 'yes' and failing is a lot more better than saying 'no' and not trying at all.

Not for the person whose money you've spent on the failure.

It only indicates the person's failure and inability on not able to validate whether the yes the other person said is true or not and hence he deserves to loose money.

Not all failures are in the 'WW2 Normandy' Ballpark.

In fact in almost all cases, letting people fail is how let them learn.

We're not talking about hiring some interns and giving them room to fail here.

If I hire your firm and you tell me you can achieve an objective, then I spend money and come to find out you can't and you knew you couldn't, you've defrauded me. If I ask if you can perform a task and you tell me you know how, then I find out you have no idea, you've lied to me.

I'll take a "No, but I can figure it out" any day of the week, but lying is a cardinal sin in any relationship.

We are not talking about those sort of failures here. But almost everyone who has every written code, has failed or written buggy code at some point in time.

In fact I'm a tad little surprised that I'm having to sell the virtues of incremental failure in a forum that idolizes "Move fast and break things"

> We are not talking about those sort of failures here.

The thread is about working with Indian contractors who frequently lie, pretending they know what is going on. We are very much talking about this kind of problem.

> In fact I'm a tad little surprised that I'm having to sell the virtues of incremental failure in a forum that idolizes "Move fast and break things"

What I'm talking about is orthogonal to this. You can move fast and break things, but be straight forward to your manager about the risk involved.

Some people assume it is a yes when some one says no, but i can figure it out. Whose to blame here?

> Some people assume it is a yes when some one says no, but i can figure it out. Whose to blame here?

The point is that pretending to know does not open up the conversation of risk and reward, whereas "No, but I can figure it out" can and typically will. If, at that point, the manager drops the ball by not making sure the risk / reward profile is correct then it is no longer on the engineer.

>I'll take a "No, but I can figure it out" any day of the week, but lying is a cardinal sin in any relationship.

...in western business culture.

...in any culture where you want trust and reliability.

If someone doesn't want to be reliable, that's their choice, but don't expect me to be willing to engage in business with them.

I only realized when I started traveling internationally how much we (perhaps over-) value reliability in the US. We really pay a lot in terms of work hours and stress to gain what is sometimes marginally more predictability and reliability.

In Mexico, Belize, southeast Asia, and southern Europe, I found everything to be much less reliable than I was used to. Everyone spent a lot time more waiting around. But I felt happier and more relaxed, and the people around me seemed to as well.

I think it might be more cultural than you seem to think.

It might be an artifact of the system-centric nature of our culture. We seek to reduce everything to predictable absolute rulesets, to make things regular and reliable and tractable. I'm not sure if this comes primarily from the Industrial era and mass-manufacturing which has a tremendous conformity component, or whether it comes mostly from the more recent advent of computers.

We so easily accede to someone who says "its policy" without considering that the person involved clearly outranks whatever policy is being dealt with. Perhaps we've not been burned by strict adherence to policy and expecting the world to be regular and predictable as recently as those other cultures. It might just be a temporary thing, but I don't know. We've got things like "personal space" which were a very American concept for a long time, but which has since spread, almost certainly with many negative consequences, widely. So maybe this desire for people to accommodate systems rather than for systems to accommodate people will spread too. We're screwed if that's the case.

...which is clearly the context of the discussion.

... in Christianity.

How so? Southern Europe is very relaxed in this sense culturally, and it's the most religiously Christian part of Europe at the same time. While atheist northern and central Europe (Germany, Netherlands, Scandinavia, Switzerland) place a lot of emphasis on reliability.

Sure you could argue that these nations are culturally Christian, but Christian culture still doesn't imply an emphasis on reliability.

At most I might agree with this being a case of the protestant work ethic, which seems to have a high correlation here (northern and central Europe as well as America is very much protestant, southern Europe is more catholic and orthodox).

However first of all most historians agree it's false, and second you get places like Germany, where the economic powerhouse is the catholic south (Baden-Württemberg has Porsche, Daimler (Mercedes), Audi and Bosch, Bayern (Bavaria) has BMW, the protestant North and East are more poor).

Lying is specifically spoken against in the New Testament [paraphrasing: "let your yes be yes"; and "be beyond reproach"]. AIUI lying is allowed in Hinduism [the means justify the end] and in Islam [if it furthers Islam, it can't be wrong].

However, just because it's lauded in Christian writings and by Christians doesn't mean that Christians are any better in this respect than others, "we are all sinners and fall short of God's glory" afterall.

I imagine Buddhism to have a similar focus on truth?

Yeah, and the problem with this is if you lie and get found out, you'll not get asked again in many Western companies.

Based on how politicians and how many second chances CEOs and other rich people get in the US I think its the same in US too.

Its just that if you are working minimum wage, or you are a spoke in the gig economy it's different for you.

Based on my experience working in the US, my American friends weren't very different. Its just that when you have sufficient you tend to worry less about over optimizing for the rainy days.

US is a different country in so many ways. US citizens are lucky to be born in such a great country, which supports its citizens through social security. And later with food stamps should the need arise. There is also awesome infrastructure like freeways and cheap air fare to move around based on opportunities. The cities are so full of opportunity. You also get free public education(Something like that is quite expensive in India.). Every city I saw where I stayed or visited(Who Bay Area, Philadelphia and NY) had parks, playgrounds. Every city had a swimming pool. Roads were sparkling clean and people were so welcoming. Plus food in the US is cheaper than chicken feed. If you can cook, rice, veggies and lentils are just like walk in the park. Meat too, you can afford to eat twice or thrice in a week. In my 3 years stay, I only have good things to say about the US. The full story is impossible to write. But I just can't imagine how anyone born in US can ever complain about lack of opportunities or ability to make a good life.

When you live in heaven, you tend to worry a little less about putting food on the table.

India is different. You have none of this. And its on your shoulders. Ensure your hands work till you die, or you will die.

Saying no to opportunities is very very expensive in India.

> India is different. You have none of this. And its on your shoulders. Ensure your hands work till you die, or you will die.

It was same in any country of the world just century ago. I.e. Indians are doing that not because of economic situation (which is much better than century ago), but because of culture. And culture is result of moral principles, which are moderated through punishments and support.

>Saying no to opportunities is very very expensive in India.

Unfortunately lying about your skillset is very expensive in the long term as well.

Cannot agree more.

Well, if what he's saying is true.. then you'd lose the chance by saying no anyways. So getting caught lying is the same result as not lying.

It'd only be useful to be honest if you do have a skillset, and the company has a reasonable chance of reaching out to you fot the skillset in the (near?) future

"Well, if what he's saying is true.. then you'd lose the chance by saying no anyways. So getting caught lying is the same result as not lying."

That's only true locally. Globally, you've got a variety of reputations, for yourself, for your firm, and whether or not you like it or consider it fair, for your country. You're burning all of those things. This will eventually catch up to you, your firm, and your country if withdrawals exceed deposits. This is, of course, a global truth, not an India-specific truth.

I've had a bunch of IT projects (almost) go off the rails because of this cultural "misunderstanding".

One thing I observed when interviewing candidates for offshore positions was that people wanting more senior technical roles wasn't as strong as here in US.

Granted this is anecdotal from interviewing maybe a couple dozen people out of whatever giant number of IT people in India.

Just wondering if there is a cultural/societal push towards the management/boss level that diminishes value towards senior technical roles?

Do you really find this to be just an Indian / non-US thing? From the time I was twenty (twenty years ago) it was pretty apparent that there was a lot more money over on the management side of things. At forty, the number of 20 and 30-somethings all snorting and fighting for promotions makes it pretty clear to me this is not a generational or cultural thing. Everybody wants more money, responsibility, title, power, etc. In a country of a billion people where a tech job represents a path out of poverty, it isn't surprising to me that you'd see the same behaviors.

Money and power. Technical tracks don't really have much of a growth path in India, and especially in service firms, where the work itself doesn't really add much to your technical skillsets.

Often the challenging/interesting bits in those scenarios are done by the US/European/Australian office, and only the implementation details are left to the Indian workers. That isn't conducive to being valued as an engineer.

Management tracks also have higher salaries. If you want to continue in engineering and still make good money, you get a H1B or equivalent and move.

Things have changed significantly and management purges are very common. And once you lose your job, finding a new one is hard, because to be frank you have no real skills apart from Microsoft Excel.

In many cases there have been people who lost jobs and didn't get a new job in over an year and had to move tech roles eventually. Some people had to change career tracks(get into marketing etc) permanently. So there is now a dedicated incentive to stay in the technical track.

Also in the current age, moving to a non-tech job is the long term equivalent of choosing a non-STEM career.

>Just wondering if there is a cultural/societal push towards the management/boss level that diminishes value towards senior technical roles?

To an extent I felt similar working for average tech shops in Montreal, Canada. I moved to California to live and work in a culture where the IC track is real and highly valued (which is fantastic).

Yes totally true. Would be hard to impossible to find a someone with solid 10 years of technical experience who is still in a technical role by choice. You would be expected to ‘lead’ teams instead of craft great products

If someone asks me, "Do you know how to do X?" I tell them yes only if I know.

If someone asks me, "Can you do X?" I tend to say yes, even if I don't, because, really, I can learn almost anything related to what someone might be asking me to do.

I have never seen any rickshaw driver say yes to some place that he doesn't know. Either he will say he is not sure and he will stop at a place and inquire for u with people nearby and then take you to the place or most of them have google maps and can look it up if you cant by urself. Since they are pretty hyperlocal even without maps they can simply by talking to couple folks here and there figure out the right destination or by looking around a little as they may have seen the same place a while back.

You seem to have internet access, so clearly without asking him to choose the route you could have seen the maps and given the route yourself which many smart people do these days to save time and if you are not able to identify a route and are at the mercy of the rickshaw guy then may be you should have some patience and be thankful to the driver for figuring out the route and taking you to the destination.

Or may be they can be smart and ask for fees if they have to find the route and if u set the route then separate fees for that.

I guess one needs to learn the art of comparison since comparing random stuff will yield pointless opinions of no value.

I have personally seen a rickshaw driver in India say yes to some place that he doesn't know - resulting in him going to a wrong place, stopping there and inquiring for me with people nearby and then having someone look it up on google maps, and afterwards going in the opposite direction to clarify the proper place once more there.

And I'm certainly not thankful for the driver to have taken all this effort of solving the difficult problem of going somewhere that he doesn't know the road; I'm angry about the large unnecessary delay caused by them saying "yes" and then being unable to properly fulfil the promise they made, i.e. go to the goal as if they had known where it is, which they said (thus, promised) they do, and didn't. I wasn't asking "are you willing to take extra effort to deliver me to place X in some way" (which is a reasonable question that I might have asked in some circumstances, but I didn't in that particular case), I was asking "do you know the route to place X". I would be thankful if they had just said "no", as I would have had the chance to find someone who does know the proper answer themselves.

This is a significant cultural difference - in my country, answering yes when if you're not sure (and demonstrating the lie by being unable to fulfil the promise on their own) would result in that person's words not being respected anymore because that person isn't honest, and that person being shunned, not being trusted with anything serious ever again until they prove that they have changed significantly; a single incident being considered sufficient to mark the person as untrustworthy. Breaking a promise or telling a falsehood - even an implied one to a stranger - is considered a very serious issue. The problem with this when working with people in Asia is that within a few months a majority of Asian coworkers generally have had at least one incident similar to this (saying, i.e. promising something that wasn't so) marking them as untrustworthy. Of course, as with any difference, it's an open question which one of the cultures should adapt to the other, or meet in the middle, but that's a quite fundamental difference.

You are using an experience with a driver to someone with an office job. That is not a fair comparison. The president of the US lies constantly. What does that say about US?

It was just an anecdotic example of a more general habit that also affects office jobs. I heard that directly from people who have an IT team in India, and the answers here at HN also seem to imply that this is a wider shared experience.

Most people including me are not experts in culture. I am not defending bad behavior. I am yet to find one single defining culture in the US and I have lived here 20 yrs. May be the rickshaw driver was being helpful. Hey you seem to not know where you are going... I don't know either so let's figure this out together... There is room for that interpretation too. I have been scammed by hospitals and HVAC guys in the US.

Overall, I see a pattern of degrading, second classing of non-whites by whites. This needs to stop.

Well, I agree with you about the point that what we perceive as "culture of a country" is often a made up construct which doesn't account for the variety of backgrounds and behavior of the citizens. It really is very hard to definitly say x is part of "the" culture of the country y.

However, what is here being discussed is not a second classing of non-whites by whites. First, how do you know that I or the persons from whom I heard about the problems with their Indian IT teams are white? You just assume that. Second, it seems that there really are issues working with some IT teams in India. Why is it wrong to attribute this to a certain work ethic? Or more prescisely: Why do I second class non-white people when I describe the work ethic I'm experiencing? Man, I lived in Germany, US and India (for a short time at least), and let me tell you, there are different work ethics in these countries. And there have nothing to do with the color of your skin. But true, mostly generalisations are unjust. But people here are describing what they experienced. And it doesn't feel for me like it is linked to skin color.

Thank you for agreeing on some parts of my comment.

The parent comment that I reacted to did not sound as sincere as yours. I am not assuming you or the previous commenter as white. It's not about the individual but rather my point is about the larger society, it's cultural institutions that have historically "whitewashed" the whole world. All of our experiences are colored in that sense. This needs to change. In fact, it's vital when worlds are coming together.

More like a russian troll

Fair enough. What does this have to do with the Original Topic? Are you just looking for a place to rant?

Oh it has a lot to do with the topic in discussion