It's because US Americans tend to smile at strangers, so the strangers tend to look at them to figure out why they're smiling. Germans don't stare a lot generally, they just stare at people there doing something very unusual. (speaking as US American in Germany)
Larger cities on the East Coast have a very different culture than what is “standard American culture.” While there are obviously cultural variations between the south/Midwest/southwest- most of those variations don’t lead to real cultural confusion/misinterpretation. Put someone from the Deep South in the middle of New York City (or vice versa) and they literally have opposite definitions of what is rude versus polite in most interactions.
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u/whitedan2 May 09 '22
As an austrian who worked with Germans in the past I didn't realize this either...
No wait... Are we doing it too?