Is your culture cold or warm?

 A common way to describe people is by temperature.  “They are very cold people”, “Everyone here is so warm”. What does it take to be part of the cold group or the warm group? Is one group better than the other? Why do people use this adjective like this?

I think many of us have heard certain nationalities described as “cold”. However, I don’t think this is a racist expression, but one which might show a lack of understanding and also a specific recognition that a cultural difference exists between you and the person you are describing. Throughout my life I have often heard “cold” refer to Russians or Eastern Europeans and not knowing anything about Russian life or culture, I unknowingly accepted this as a fitting description. Recently I have heard Chileans describing Chinese people as cold. This labelling of Chinese people as cold made me start to question the expression, its meaning and validity, as I, having lived in and studied Chinese culture, would not describe them as cold.

People being labelled as “cold” could have something to do with the climate of a certain country or region. From what I can tell Russia is very cold in winter, pictures of Siberia spring to mind. Maybe people in colder climates spend more time indoors with their families rather than outside with others and this affects their ‘warmth’ or closeness with others when they see them. However there are quite a few exceptions to this climate stereotype. For example, I have never heard Canadians be described as cold, and I know they get a fair amount of snow every year.

It could have something to do with your style of interaction with other people. Introverted people can be described as cold because they might not desire to communicate or to spend extended periods of time with other people in “conventional” environments. Shy people too, people who don’t speak that specific language well, people who are sick or tired and so remain distant. In this way ‘cold’ is used to distance certain styles of interaction while the more “mainstream” styles are interpreted as correct. Sometimes this use of ‘cold’ is specific to individuals rather than a large group of people which is interesting. The word cold can be used in both contexts without question. Stereotyping is so vague that one word can describe an entire group of people; millions of citizens, and these simple, one word descriptions, images and perspectives all influence the way we view and interact with other cultures.

It could also refer to physical interaction. Cold weather is also said to be ‘frigid’, being unable to enjoy sexual contact. So extrapolating from that, people who don’t touch or kiss as a natural social behaviour tend to be described as cold. In this sense physical contact is interpreted as a positive personality trait.

Maybe cold is a word that expresses a negative alternative to ones cultural comfort zone. I’m thinking that generally people from ‘warm’, touchy, louder cultures are the ones that use this word, ‘cold’, as a negative adjective. Why not use the word ‘shy’ or ‘reserved’? Probably because people are somewhat afraid of the unknown culture they are dealing with and so tend to push it away with a type of insult.

For all we know touching and kissing (for greetings or during a friendly conversation) could be a dangerous habit for spreading infection. Talking a lot, asking a lot of questions and loudly, could be disrespectful to a host or push boundaries of relationships in certain cultures. Until you have put in the time to figure out a culture, you will never know. If people studied other cultures they wouldn’t see the way people act as strange and negative, they would just know that in that culture there are different ways of expressing your mood and personality.

The words we use to describe others shed light on our own cultures, personalities, perspectives and knowledge.