When you're smiling

By Jeff Long

When giving written examinations to students, it's often fair to offer some multiple-choice questions. Here's one.

Try to get the correct answer.

(Broad hint: The correct answer is C.)

When a stranger smiles at you in the street, you should:

A) Assume he's drunk

B) Assume he's insane

C) Assume he's an American

In the interests of full disclosure, this column is based not only on my own experience of traveling but also on a recent online column at theatlantic.com.

One of the remarks my wife and I have heard when we have had the opportunity to visit Europe and the Middle East has to do with the optimism frequently displayed by visiting Americans.

Americans are -- and this is nearly a direct quote from elderly friends we've made in Scotland -- "loud, gas-guzzling and optimistic."

Hmm.

I make no comment on the accuracy of that statement; however, I can comment as an American on the lack of certain courtesies abroad that are taken for granted in our country.

Holding the door open for a stranger behind you -- almost never witnessed by us. Saying "excuse me" when the paths of two people come uncomfortably close -- rarely heard.

In Israel, we witnessed people cutting into buffet lines for food without explanation or embarrassment. The last example happened so often in the Holy Land, it began to interfere with my digestion.

Despite recent -- and so far failed -- efforts to restrict immigration from certain countries, the plain fact is the U.S.A. has been extraordinarily welcoming of non-natives to these shores.

Because our republic's proud history has been that of a melting pot, Americans tend to rely more on nonverbal communication. We smile more, in other words.

The United States is also a heterogeneous nation. An international study obtained by The Atlantic, a magazine, found the U.S. boasts 83 source countries.

A cursory examination of the enrollment of Southeast Missouri State University verifies this diversity: China, Japan, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Germany, France, et al.

In my own community of Jackson, a great doughnut shop is operated entirely by a family from Cambodia.

Mainland China and Zimbabwe, by contrast, are relatively homogeneous, with few non-natives. Their source countries easily may be counted on the fingers of two hands.

Smiling opens doors. Smiling makes possible relationships and not merely transactional dealings. Smiling is the universal translator of feelings and intentions.

It seems to come naturally to Americans to exhibit wide-open grins. This is not second nature everywhere else in the world.

When McDonald's came into the Russia market after the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, new employees there had to be taught how to smile. (Source: Invisibilia.)

When Wal-Mart expanded into Germany, the company quickly stopped requiring store clerks to smile at customers. Many Germans found smiling in those settings to be strange. Some male shoppers interpreted the grins as unwanted flirting. (Source: New York Times.)

Of all the places we've seen, the interpersonal encounters are the ones that endure in my mind -- the common courtesies or lack thereof; the smiling or the stoicism; the graciousness or the rudeness.

There is not a single instance in the New Testament in which Jesus is described smiling or laughing. Probably the Lord's biographers did not think it important, and that's a shame.

The Fellowship of Merry Christians, based in Portage, Michigan, has published a newsletter for more than 20 years aimed at getting Christians to smile and laugh more.

FMC encourages churches to hold annual "Holy Humor" Sundays.

Liz Curtis Higgs, a Christian comic and motivational speaker, observes: "We ... desperately need to laugh. Our pews are full of people in pain."

Smiling and laughing also build close-knit relationships.

Even though the Bible doesn't show us this side of him, there can be little doubt the Jesus of history smiled and laughed.

He never would have been able to hold 12 disciples together for 3 1/2 years without a wide, welcoming and happy countenance.

Often when I think of the founder of the faith I call my own, when I consider Jesus -- whom the letter of Hebrews called the author and finisher of Christianity -- I picture him, head tilted back, exulting in a loud guffaw.