I think, personally, that it’s not just smiling. The superficiality of American civility in general confuses me (this is the pompous, “as a Brit” moment). I had to deal with a lot of Americans last summer on a fleeting, anonymous basis. 90% would introduce themselves with “how are you?”, and I’d always fall for it, thinking they actually expected an answer, not realising that the question part of the question had no significance; or at least, a different significance.

“How are you?”
“I’m OK, yours–?”
“We’d like to…”
*rob is left open-mouthed, mid-response, feeling half-presumptuous, half-annoyed*

Dacoit: One can keep peeling an onion, no? And they def. don’t brush their teeth in NYC. sheesh.

The more you spent on your teeth, the greater the compulsion to show them off?

As dacoit points out, even in the US, smiles vary. I have not seen a New Yorker (city, not state) smile, for example. When my wife moved back from Jersey to Atlanta, she was surprised at how many people here say hi to strangers.

The Pakistani sneer I have never liked, especially when it is so status-conscious. And at the wedding, no one allows the bride to smile. I have seen family elders admonishing the bride whenever she smiles during the ceremony.

There is a stereotypicality to the idea that American smiles are fake but smiles, “hi”, “how are you?” to strangers here are just that, nothing more.

smiling, when you don’t really mean it, is one of the crullest things you can do in the hindi film song tradition, a direct continuation of the hinustani-urdu poetry tradition….

and oh, i’ve had a whale of a time in lahore without anyone smiling much - except once they figured i was indian. then the wattage came on, and the conversations, and the discounts/freebies. and boy, did that feel great…

people in delhi/elsewhere get really puzzled becuase i have a big goofy absent minded grin on my face a lot… ‘why does he smile this much?’

i would recommend watching the newwest indian advertisement for ‘happydent’ gum - a bizzzare twist on both sub-coninental ’smiling’ and chris pinney’s camera indica…

Pakistanis don’t floss, don’t use mouthwash, don’t wear braces in childhood, don’t have electric toothbrishes, don’t whiten, don’t use waterpicks — what do they have to smile about?

Hairy Mango pits and sugarcane are not substitutes for flossing, and cardomom is not a breathfreshener. Keep your yellowed teeth to yourselves.

so, ok, i know it’s crazy, but just for the sake of science let’s say that it’s occasionally possible for an american smile to be FELT and MEANT. the question that plagued me most in the land of the pure was not, why aren’t they smiling, but, what are they FEELING? (since my regular signposts - words and faces - were no longer reliable). let’s set aside the smile of the Beloved for a moment (along with the arch of her eyebrow and her fragrant curl). let’s get down to brass tacks with ordinary internally mirthful, loving folks. certainly non-smilers feel what i would consider to be smiley-feelings (love, happiness, a general bubbling over of warmth) in at least some circumstances similar to those which make smilers smile. i wonder how those feelings (where they come from, where they end up, the pictures they create or emerge from in the mind…) might be different when they have no physical manifestation.

i tried, as an experiment while in pakistan, to resist the upward tugging of mouth muscles when i felt a tiny leap of glee or a sweep of gratitude or appreciation (ok i’m not counting sitting in a chair being solemnly presented with wedding money by a string of aunties while the tv in the background blared the good, the bad and the ugly…). in those situations not smiling felt much like holding in a sneeze, only harder.

so…i guess for me the question is: are the non-smilers holding back, are they stifling an impulse ? (perhaps without much effort, having practiced from any early age.) or, is the facial impulse simply not there, are the muscles not connected to the emotional center in the same way?

there’s gotta be a study….

Also: for the record, I must state again that I do NOT think American smiles are sincere. That’s silly.