Monthly Archives: February 2012

 
We all know the way to say “Hello” in Mandarin Chinese is “Nihao!”, but do you know that the number one INFORMAL way to greet someone in Chinese is actually “Ni chifan le ma?”, which means “Have you had food/breakfast/lunch/dinner yet?”.

I remember when I first started speaking English with native English speakers, I always felt lost when asked “How are you?”. It often took me a few seconds to come up with an unnatural, awkward answer, even though on my English textbook, the dialogue uniformly continues on with “I am fine, and you?”. Later I realized, the reason why I had to take the time to react was because the same greeting habit simply doesn’t exist in Mandarin, or at least between native speakers.

Being the real most common greeting in Chinese, “Ni chifan le ma?” shows you how “eating” is considered such an big event in Chinese culture. There is a famous Chinese proverb that says ” 吃饭皇帝大” (chifan huangdi da) which can be translated into “nothing is bigger than eating”. By greeting someone with this casual sentence, you are also showing the close relationship you have. In the video, I asked Huo Li if he had “zaocan” (breakfast). He answered no, and asked about me. In real conversations, as you can imagine, the eating topic can easily last for quite some time.