Trust?

[fschmidt]

I would like to ask the intrepid travelers here about the level of trust between men in different countries. I am not talking about superficial issues like being able to talk to someone. I am talking about the degree to which one can count on another man being true to his word. How do you rate various countries on this metric?

[DaRick]

Well, I'd imagine that America would be close to the bottom when it comes to male-to-male trust. Petty backstabbing, from what I've heard, is rife there, amongst other things. Australia, thanks to American culture having overshadowed the already tenuous Australian culture, is much the same. Ideals of mateship, especially amongst the young, are usually replaced with the same infighting, often over second-rate women, even amongst previously close friends. I've seen this happen too often.

[Contrarian Expatriate]

I have found that men from the developing world TRY to exploit trust. These men consider Americans naive and easy to dupe.
One should never fully trust ANYONE overseas, and one should always be aware that your "rock star" status is resented by many who would portray themselves as friends.

Trust must be earned over a protracted period of time. Trust develops after seeing one pass "tests" like planting secrets to see if they are passed on, or loaning small items or money to see if it is returned followed up with requests for more.

Trust should be given in degrees very judiciously.

One who trusts too easily is a fool bound to be duped.

[fschmidt]

I'll give my limited impression. The Japanese seem pretty trustworthy, especially when their reputation is on the line. Americans are only trustworthy on a superficial level. You can trust Americans for small things, but for anything big, they will stab you in the back. Chinese are the exact opposite. There is no trust among Chinese strangers, but if you build a personal relationship, this results in meaningful trust. In poor countries, there is no trust at any level, which is probably the reason they are poor. I don't have enough experience with Europeans to comment about them.

Any more feedback based on personal experience?

[wuxi]

I'll give my limited impression. The Japanese seem pretty trustworthy, especially when their reputation is on the line. Americans are only trustworthy on a superficial level. You can trust Americans for small things, but for anything big, they will stab you in the back. Chinese are the exact opposite. There is no trust among Chinese strangers, but if you build a personal relationship, this results in meaningful trust. In poor countries, there is no trust at any level, which is probably the reason they are poor. I don't have enough experience with Europeans to comment about them.

Any more feedback based on personal experience?

Most chinese don't have a high opinion of western people including the issue of trust. However, people from northern china seem more trustworthy than people from southern china to me anyway. The same applies to england, people from the north seem a lot friendlier than southerners except for maybe cornwall. The incomes in northern china and northern england are generally less and this seems to have a positive effect on the overall behavior of the people.

[ladislav]

Minorities in different countries tend to support and trust each other because they simply have no choice. Once they become more assimilated and have more rights, they no longer have to rely on each other and start screwing each other over. Jews in and Chinese in hostile countries act like that.

[aiko73]

Try filipino men..they would surely respect your wishes and always be faithful to you aside from being trustworthy and loyal..

[Winston]

Trust has to be earned yeah. This is an individual thing though.

You also have to be good at reading people.

If the person has third party sources, that always helps too.

Generally though, if they are trustworthy with small things, then you can generally trust them, but don't trust them with your life unless they have very high morals.

Anal retentive people tend to be trustworthy in that they feel anxiety if they don't keep their promises. People that are too relaxed, like hippies, tend to flake out and not follow through on plans, so I wouldn't let them borrow anything.

[Jackal]

I think that there is generally more trust between people in countries with small populations which are ethnically homogeneous. Many Scandanavian countries and Eastern European countries fit this description. Japan is quite homogeneous ethnically; China is not (they have all kinds of minority groups which they are afraid of).

Suspicion of other races and ethnic groups seems to be an innate human trait.

[S_Parc]

This area seems a bit open ended for me. Since it's harder to make friends in the west, I find members of some diasporas to be more trustworthy than mainstreamers outside of them. And this isn't limited to the extreme groups like Orthodox Jews, Pennsylvanian Dutch, etc. I guess the thing here is that within diasporas, people have *reputations* whereas in mainstream America, most people live invisible lives. And being invisible makes one's reputation less transparent to a newcomer.

And yes, being a pseudo-rock star in let's say Thailand, makes westerners too open for deception.

As for groupings, I find stateside folks, who're into spirituality, to be more or less, untrustworthy, much like the example of the flaked out hippies. The difference being is that spiritual types have passive-aggressive streaks because they can't be too upfront about being both a hypocrite and someone interested in enlightenment.

[OutWest]

Try filipino men..they would surely respect your wishes and always be faithful to you aside from being trustworthy and loyal..

!


LOL...very very very few. With years in the Islands, I can say that is hardly ever the case.
The Philippines is very corrupt..theft at all levels of any function is the rule.
This takes place even with those close around you.

There are a few women you can trust in the Philippines and almost no men.
It might be that Filipino Catholic duality. A few woman actually are keepers of
morality, men are expected to be bastards.

outwest