This must be a form of culture shock, because it’s starting to get to us: Indians in the places we’ve been don’t seem to like smiling. At least not the ones in the hospitality industry, which are kind of the ones you’d expect to do the most smiling.

We’ve stayed at four hotels in India so far (one in Varanasi, two in Calcutta, and one in Jaipur), and the staff has been stone-faced at each and every one. What’s the deal? It’s been five months now since we left, so we’ve stayed in dozens and dozens of hotels and guesthouses, and eaten in even more restaurants. We feel like we know what to expect from people who are used to dealing with tourists, and this is just not normal. It’s impossible to not think that they’re downright rude.

If you’ve ever met Val, you’ll know that it’s not easy for her to stop smiling. After a week and a half in india, she’s trying pretty hard. Get your room key from the guy, but don’t smile, because he’s not. Place your order or say thank you to the guy at the food counter, but don’t smile, because he’s not going to. The manager acts like he could care less if you stay there or not.

For the most part, the only people who smile are rickshaw drivers, children, and people in rickshaws that pass us and wave and say, “Hello!” Depending on your current mood it’s either incredibly endearing or extremely irritating. But never being able to develop a rapport with the people at the hotel you’ve been staying at for three or four days is really annoying. Every day it’s the same frosty, stoic reception.

It’s a stupid thing to find irritating, but just think about it for a minute and you’ll see why it could get under your skin. Try to imagine checking into a hotel and staying there for three days and not getting smiled at once by any of the fifteen staff members. It could never happen, except maybe here in parts of India. This is all very tough when coming from Nepal, the land of smiling people, or Turkey, or Egypt, or Amsterdam. Everywhere else we’ve been, people really like smiling, as much as us even. And why not?

Now we’re on the ridiculous mission to stop smiling at people because it only pisses us off when they never, ever smile back. Observe:

We noticed in Japan that Japanese people don’t smile in pictures. Whenever we were asked to be in a staff picture, we were the only idiots smiling. I remember trying a few times to not smile, but it just seemed so unnatural. I don’t know. But outside of pictures at least, they’re like everyone else: they smile at each other during most interactions, business or personal.

There are a few exceptions: Western or Western-like establishments. The staff at places like McDonald’s, Subway, KFC, Pizza Hut, or coffee shops like Barista and Coffee Day Cafe (not sure if it’s only in India) are always bright, attractive, and extremely cheerful. Going there is a breath of fresh air, and not just because of the sanitation standards: the workers are so damn warm and friendly, it’s hard not to be impressed (and smile). At Coffee Day Cafe if they don’t smile at you, your coffee is free. But it’s not like they’re forcing the smile just to keep with company policy, they seem genuine. Maybe it is a cultural thing after all.

There’s a lot of things to get used to in India, and this is the most surprising so far.