HOW POLITE ARE WE?

Global Courtesy Test

Reader's Digest, a Canadian magazine, ranked the world's courtesy based on three different tests. In each location (out of 36 cities) the following tests were conducted:

• walk into public buildings 20 times behind people to see if they would hold the door open
• buy small items from 20 stores and recorded whether the sales assistants said thank you
• drop a folder full of papers in 20 busy locations to see if anyone would help picking them up

To allow a comparison between the cities, one point was awarded for each positive outcome and nothing for a negative one, giving each city a maximum score of 60.

So which city emerged as the most polite and which as the rudest? Here's what was discovered:

The MOST Courteous!

• City (Score)

1. New York, USA (80%)
   
2. Zurich, Switzerland (77%)
   
3. Toronto, Canada (70%)
   
4. Berlin, Germany (68%)
   
5. Sao Paula, Brazil (68%)
   
6. Zagreb, Croatia (68%)
   
7. Auckland, New Zealand (68%)
   
8. Warsaw, Poland (67%)
   
9. Mexico City, Mexico (67%)
   
10. Stockholm, Sweden (65%)
    
11. Budapest, Hungary (63%)
    
12. Madrid, Spain (60%)
    
13. Prague, Czech Republic (60%)
    
14. Vienna, Austria (60%)
    
15. Buenos Aires, Argentina (57%)
    
16. Johannesburg, SA (57%)
    
17. Lisbon, Portugal (57%)
    
18. London, UK (57%)
    
19. Paris, France (57%)
    

The LEAST Courteous!

• City (Score)

20. Amsterdam, Netherlands (52%)
    
21. Montreal, Canada (50%)
    
22. Helsinki, Finland (48%)
23. Manila, Philippines (48%)
    
24. Milan, Italy (47%)
    
25. Sydney, Australia (47%)
    
26. Bangkok, Thailand (45%)
    
27. Hong Kong (45%)
    
28. Ljubljana, Slovenia (43%)
    
29. Jakarta, Indonesia (43%)
    
30. Taipei, Taiwan (43%)
    
31. Moscow, Russia (42%)
    
32. Singapore (42%)
    
33. Seoul, South Korea (40%)
    
34. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (37%)
    
35. Bucharest, Romania (35%)
    
36. Mumbai, India (32%)

Surprised? It seems that New Yorkers showed they are big-hearted despite their reputation as big-headed. Apparently, they placed in the top five in all three tests and were particularly polite when it came to holding doors open, with only two people failing to do so.

Zagreb residents were world leaders in helping with dropped papers. Seventy-two year old Josip tried to bend down to pick up the female reporter's documents despite having arthritis and a bad back. "I always help someone in trouble", he said, "if I can!"

While in Paris reporters were so upset at the lack of help with dropped papers that they considered abandoning the test altogether.

Somewhere in the middle of the rankings was Amsterdam and Montreal. There, while some assistants were almost unfailingly courteous to customers, the general public didn't do so well in helping others out. In Montreal's Central Train Station, a well-dressed man in his 50s failed to hold a door for the female researcher, offering the excuse that "I just held the door for someone downstairs" before continuing his way.

The region that most consitently lacked courtesy: Asia. Eight out of nine cities there finished in the bottom 11.

Last in the rankings was Mumbai, where courtesy in the stores was particularly lacking. When the female reporter bought a pair of plastic hair clips at a convenience store, sales assistant Shivlal Kumavat turned his back on her as soon as she has paid. Askey wky, the 31-year-old was unapologetic. "Madam, I am not an educated guy. I hand goods over to the customers, and that's it."

But, discourtesy was also found outside Asia. Moscow and Bucharest ranked as the least polite cities in European countries. When an affluent-looking lady in her 40s failed to hold a door in Moscow's Prospekt Vernadskogo, she chided: " I am not a doorman. It's not my job to hold doors. If someone gets hurt, they should be quicker on their feet."

While two of the world's most affluent cities - Zurich and New York - came at the top of the rankings, plenty of courtesy was found in poorer areas, too.

In Johanesburg, the researcher concluded, "The better dressed the person, the less likely he or she was to help. This applied across the board, irrespective of race."

What can we learn from the results? As Salvador Garcia of Mexico City concluded: "It was great to find that the vast majority of our subjects not only passed the test but said they think they are part of a culture of kindness despite our daily problems."

An example of this kindness was shown in the same city by pastry-shop worker Rodolfo Mateo Santiago, 21. He thanked the researcher for her purchase of a bottle of water and revealed that he has inherited his belief in courtesy from his grandmother, who had told him, "The most beautiful thing you can give another human being is a genuine smile. Live your life by this motto and you will see wonderful results."