Getting the Waiter's Attention in Different Countries

Of course the main point of me moving to a new country is to get to know the people there and learn from their customs and perspectives. However, the expat community in each country is often where many of my closest friends come from--they're travelers from all over the world who love to learn and explore.

Rio has a great expat community and I've made lots of friends there. The best part is learning from other people about all the different cultures and a friend of mine recently made some interesting observations I want to share.

He's a non-English speaker from Argentina, who works at a restaurant in a luxury hotel. It's mainly a self-serve buffet but customers can also order regular menu dishes and things like coffee off the menu. He was telling me that each culture has its own personality while eating in the restaurant and I was dying laughing while he was explaining it to me. 

He said French people never say anything when they need the waiter; instead they ask with their eyes. He did an impersonation, pinching his mouth together into what you could call a polite smile, leaning out of his seat to make eye contact, widening his eyes and--I guess you could say--blinking them to say "excuse me". Brazilians, he said, sit there and expect you to do everything for them. Even though it's a buffet, they seem to expect the waiter to bring them every little thing. 

Then he told me about Americans. Actually, he asked me about them. He told me Americans are the only ones who pick up their coffee mugs (originally ordered from and delivered by the waiter) and get out of their chairs, walk over near the waiters, and start looking around for more coffee. He wanted to know why the hell they didn't just order the coffee like everyone else.

I came up with my own ideas for why it might be. First (and most likely), since my friend doesn't speak English and therefore can't explain how it all works when the customers take their seats, they might assume coffee is mostly self-serve, too. Or it could be Americans' intense desire for independence and doing things on our own. It's anybody's guess (or maybe a psychologist's) but it made me laugh. 

These are all different, of course, than Korea's way of getting waiters' attention which is yelling "Over here!" at the top of your lungs from across the restaurant but I don't think my friend has a lot of Koreans where he works.

Getting a waiter's attention is, of course, one very small aspect of cultural differences but it's still interesting.