High Voltage: Don't want to know how you are

Welcome to the first post of High Voltage, a column where I will be introducing all the wonderful culture shocks I come across. As you all have probably realised by now, Chinese culture is greatly different to that of western countries. The gap becomes even more apparent when you start actually studying their language, and more specifically their greetings. Think for a moment how we usually start our conversations:

"Hello, Mike! How are you?"
"I'm fine, Pete! How about you?"
"Not too bad."

Click the jump to learn an interesting fun fact.



That little bit of conversation above does not occur in China! There, I said it. The Chinese do not want to know how each other are feeling. It comes off as strange. In cases where people are quiet familiar with each other even the "ni hao" is completely scraped. The Chinese go straight to the point. Of course in the west we also tend to not use the more formal iterations of greetings but between friends we do still use some way of initiating a conversation, such as "hey!", "yo!" or for Greeks "ela re!".

I've also noticed on several occasions that even "good byes" are not used. Now, honestly, this did happen to me once or twice with Kim's best friends and I was left staring into space thinking "that was awfully rude!". But in reality it is not so at all. It's kind of hard to get over it really as greetings and farewells are embedded into my DNA. I believe it's probably a way for the Chinese to distinguish between formalities and we all know that between friends being formal will lead to negative consequences.

Regardless, it is really mind-boggling when people don't say "hello" and "goodbye" but if you do encounter a Chinese person who seems to skip them, don't take it the wrong way.