Greeting 　　 中国人见面打招呼时，喜欢问“你吃了吗？”“你去哪呀？” 　 　而西方人对此都感到很怪异。

　 An American studying in China had an appointment at noon. As he was getting on his bicycle a Chinese friend passed by. "吃了吗？" the young Chinese asked. This, of course, is a common Chinese greeting around meal time and the American merely nodded with a smile, waved goodbye and went off. He realized that his friend' s remark was nothing more than a Chinese way of saying Hello or Hi. If the greeting had been put literally into English "Have you eaten yet?" Or " Have you had your lunch? " It would have sounded rather unusual. To Americans, this greeting might mean this: "I haven't either. Come on, let' s go together and get something to eat." or "If you haven' t, I was just going to invite you to my place." In other words, it could indicate an invitation to a meal.

　 Actually , another foreign student who had not been long in China once complained in broken Chinese 你们为什么老问我吃了饭没有？我有钱。To his way of thinking, people were concerned that he was not getting his meals properly because of lack of money. Clearly, he was offended. There is a similar Chinese greeting, such as ＂上哪儿去啊？＂＂到哪儿去啦？＂ which if translated literally, would be "Where are yon going?" Or "Where have you been?" The natural reaction of most English-speaking people to this greeting would most likely be "It' s none of your business!"

　 Fortunately, not all greetings sound strange or arouse displeasure. Many are similar , some are merely different. While greetings in many languages often indicate the time of day, there may be inconsistencies within a language. English has Good morning, Good afternoon and Good evening but not Good noon. And Good night is not a greeting at all, but an expression of farewell.