Any Armenian-Americans here? A culture question (Arlington, Watertown: contractors, moving to, friendly)

[Marcolo]

I hope this doesn't come across as inappropriate. I hate talking gross generalizations about entire ethnic groups. Obviously, people are people, and you can't pre-judge anybody. But that's not really what I'm asking about.

I'm moving to Watertown and for the first time ever, have started to come in contact with significant numbers of Armenian-American contractors and business owners. What I've noticed is how strikingly friendly all of them are. In addition, all of them seem to actually care about my business and my house, and take a lot of time explaining things to me. There's also a lot of smiling, a lot of joking, and a lot of chatting.

I guess this is noticeable to me because I'm not from MA, and we all know that New Englanders often take a while to warm up.

Is this just coincidence, or is warmth, friendliness, etc. an important value in Armenian-American culture?

Sorry if the question sounds stupid--I don't mean it that way.

[teachertype]

I grew up in that area, knew lots of Armenian and Armenian-American guys (I'm not).

To the extent you can generalize towards a whole culture, I always found them to be friendly towards me... helpful, warm, open-hearted, hard working, shrewd businessmen but honest and concerned about keeping their good reputation, proud of their Armenian culture. Maybe a little chauvinistic about their female family members, as in gentlemanly and protective, valuing them, but I go back a few years. The Armenian-American girls I knew were all stylish, very intelligent, well educated, easy to talk to and having all the same good qualities I found in the guys.

At the time, I was interested in oriental rugs, antiques and photography and met Armenian-Americans in Watertown, Arlington, Belmont in those businesses. It doesn't surprise me that you're having a good experience of that ethnic culture.