I Learned Something Today.

My father should be Chinese. I think this excerpt from one of my students' papers (an international student from Shanghai) will explain why.

As we all know, say "hello" to others is very common thing everyday in America. However, in China, if two friends meet, they won't say "hello" to each other -- they will ask after food. For instance, I meet my friend on the campus, I will say, "Have you ate today?" or "What did you eat today?" Then, he or she will be so happy to answer me yes or no and say what he or she have ate.

Is this Big Lare or what? How much would he love a culture where it was polite to ask what people have eaten? In some ways, my father already does this. If he calls at 6:00, after I say hello he'll say, "Did you eat supper yet?" If I say yes, he wants a run-down of the meal. If I haven't, he wants to know what I plan to eat. Or, if he calls in the afternoon he'll ask if I've started thinking about supper yet. It's pretty funny.

As far as I've observed, he doesn't ask these kinds of questions to people outside the family, but I bet he'd love it if he could. The one exception is when discussing vacation with people. His first question, without fail, is some variation of "What did you eat?" Sometimes it's "What kind of food did you eat in that country?" and sometimes it's "How much did they feed you on that cruise ship?" But always, always, his biggest interest is the dinner.