/threadOriginally Posted by Citizen Bleys
I'd like to share a short tale with you, though.
I once spent a short time in Italy. And in that short time, I made several friends, most of whom I never learned the names of.
I performed a social experiment where I stood on a street corner in a Venice next to an outdoor market, and stopped people passing by to explain to them (in my broken Italian) the benefits of genetic modification to plants. I don't remember where I kept the results -- I know I recorded them in a journal somewhere -- but iirc about 95% of people I stopped and talked to listened receptively. After my spiel, about half of them asked a few more questions, and afterwards thanked me for the information. A small handful of people politely helped me with my grammar and then thanked me for the information. The rest thanked me for the information and went on their way, except for a couple who said they would look deeper into the matter through online research and gave me their phone numbers in case I wanted to continue the discussion. And then they thanked me for the information. Basically, the results were great; everyone was very warm and receptive, and even the people who disagreed with my stance were happy to learn about something they didn't really have an active interest in. Nobody took offense at my mediocre Italian speech. The only people who even declined a conversation were in a rush, and even then said they were sorry they wouldn't be able to chat. And it was genuine.
...Needless to say, the results of the experiment did not go over the same in America.
tl;dr: If you want to be around people that aren't raised to be ignorant little trouts, live in Italy. You don't even need to learn Italian. Random people on the streets will help you learn while you're there.
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