“How are you” and “have you eaten yet?”
July 18th, 2009 by xgzOne of the standard Chinese greetings is 吃了吗 or “have you eaten yet.” It has been such a natural part of the culture, that when I was in China and was greeted this way, the reply was always an automatic 吃了 (yes) or 没呢 (no). It never crossed my mind how strange such a greeting would seem, since the person asking almost definitely is not interested in the information whether I have eaten or not. Westerners have written about this greeting and interpreted this as evidence that food is of primary concern in the Chinese culture.
Now I am starting to feel that the American greeting “how are you” is equally strange. I have learned since elementary school that the correct reply to “how are you” is “I’m fine, thank you. And you?” For the first few years in the US I always dutifully replied this way. Later I started to shorten the reply, sometimes with only a short “I’m fine.” To my surprise, very often the other person still continued with “I’m fine too, thank you” even without my asking the “and you” part. Then I understand that “how are you” is as much a formality as “have you eaten yet.” The greeting is simply a display of friendliness. The actual content of the greeting probably does not matter.
By the way, speaking of translations, some clever Chinese constructed a hilarious translation of “how are you:” how=怎么, are=是, you=你. Adding them together we get 怎么是你 or “why is it you?” This is to be followed by the translation of “how old are you” where old=老 so “how old are you”=怎么老是你 or “why is it always you?” This has become a often told joke in Chinese.
