Laughter and suicide
The author of an article on the management-issues.com website recalls a sad event, where he witnessed a suicide: a man jumped from a tall building as he was feeling grief and despair. What surprised the author was how people gathered around, laughing and taking photographs.
In Europe and America our parents teach us that a neutral, stone face is the only appropriate response to such a horrifying event.
In the given situation, however, fake laughter and giggling was just a disguise intended to conceal feelings of horror. Fake laughter is a very common response in Asian cultures to such strong feelings of discomfort or nervousness.
If someone is giggling, this doesn’t necessarily mean they think a tragedy is funny.
Managing emotions in different situations
The basic difference is in the way we are taught to manage appropriately our emotional expressions. Simply in any culture there are rules for displaying emotion.
These rules are learned at school, from our peers and also via what we see in the media. Sometimes emotion is shown, at other times masked. Sometimes it should perhaps be exaggerated as well.
When someone’s behaviour seems inappropriate or rude, try to consider alternative explanations.
-jk-