View Chinese Culture - #1 for an explanation of this series.
Chinese Tradition: "Have you eaten?"
The standard Chinese greeting when meeting someone is "Nie How" (You Good). If it's a friend, often this becomes a question: "Nie How Ma?" (You Good?). But if you really care about someone, family or very close friend, the greeting can be "Nie Chur Ma?" (You Eat? / Have you eaten?). [Please pardon my Pinyin, I'm spelling Western Phonetically the best I can to get the pronunciation correct for people who may not know Pinyin character pronunciation]
This all comes back to wishing someone good health and long life as well as many times in Chinese history where there was just not enough food to go around. Asking someone if they have eaten means you care about their health and well-being. Its more direct than our typical "How are you?"
No comments:
Post a Comment