How are you?
It's been a long time since my last clubbing with friends.
Today when i was in a pub, I recalled my clubbing folks in Edinburgh.
One night we were in Human-bein', Melf and I discussed about the problem of 'How are you?'
He commented one of our folks says that too often -- when he was in Frankfurt he seldom said so.
I agreed. In Hong Kong I seldom say so, too. Upon my arrival in Edinburgh I got a hard time on how to react to the "How-are-yous" every time when I encountered somebody I know, on the street, in the classroom, in the supermarket, even on my way rushing to lectures. Even later when I got used to react upon that, I could never get used to ask.
But I found that Melf is probably the only one who agreed with me, among almost all people I met -- I found that not only Greek guys, Japaneses, Englishes, Scottishes, Welshes, Swisses, Spanishes, Americans, Norwagiens, Swedishes....even some Germans not from Frankfurt, they are very used to say 'How are you'.
Probably it is a problem in Metropolitan cities. "How are you?" actually doesn't mean much, but it do occupy people some time to perform such "ask and answer" action. Answers are repetitive, usually. Therefore for people from metropolitan citiies, especially where efficiency are highly praised, like Hong Kong and Frankfurt, people are probably reluctant to perform this repetitive action to everybody everytime when they encounter -- we are in a rush, we don't have time to stand on the street to chat how's going on with us, not even a while.
No wonder those from metropolitan cities appear as 'cold'. Like Hong Kong it is especially, people are living in their own movable castles -- not only to the strangers we are super reluctant to know or talk to, but also to our friends, we are spending terribly few time to try to get to know how's going on with most of them -- you know, even a phone call just asking "how are you?" without any proper purpose sounds silly somehow, in Hong Kong; probably will be seen as a waste of time...
That's why we get so many 'strangers' in our city -- though we are living so close to each other.
Today when i was in a pub, I recalled my clubbing folks in Edinburgh.
One night we were in Human-bein', Melf and I discussed about the problem of 'How are you?'
He commented one of our folks says that too often -- when he was in Frankfurt he seldom said so.
I agreed. In Hong Kong I seldom say so, too. Upon my arrival in Edinburgh I got a hard time on how to react to the "How-are-yous" every time when I encountered somebody I know, on the street, in the classroom, in the supermarket, even on my way rushing to lectures. Even later when I got used to react upon that, I could never get used to ask.
But I found that Melf is probably the only one who agreed with me, among almost all people I met -- I found that not only Greek guys, Japaneses, Englishes, Scottishes, Welshes, Swisses, Spanishes, Americans, Norwagiens, Swedishes....even some Germans not from Frankfurt, they are very used to say 'How are you'.
Probably it is a problem in Metropolitan cities. "How are you?" actually doesn't mean much, but it do occupy people some time to perform such "ask and answer" action. Answers are repetitive, usually. Therefore for people from metropolitan citiies, especially where efficiency are highly praised, like Hong Kong and Frankfurt, people are probably reluctant to perform this repetitive action to everybody everytime when they encounter -- we are in a rush, we don't have time to stand on the street to chat how's going on with us, not even a while.
No wonder those from metropolitan cities appear as 'cold'. Like Hong Kong it is especially, people are living in their own movable castles -- not only to the strangers we are super reluctant to know or talk to, but also to our friends, we are spending terribly few time to try to get to know how's going on with most of them -- you know, even a phone call just asking "how are you?" without any proper purpose sounds silly somehow, in Hong Kong; probably will be seen as a waste of time...
That's why we get so many 'strangers' in our city -- though we are living so close to each other.
posted by 太公 at 2:30 am
2 Comments:
Joyce, my take is that it's hardly the holding back from asking "how are you" which makes a community feel cold. It's the way people ask "how are you" but expect nothing more detailed than "fine."
haha. Agree.
I'm thinking. somehow, sometimes it's a way to start to conversation. In our society we may use something instead, named: 廢話，like
- 係電梯大堂見到人會問：等lift呀? 返工呀? 咁晏呀? 明知故問
- lunchhour係餐廳偶遇會問：食飯呀？鬼唔知咩。
- 係戲院偶遇朋友同伴侶睇戲，會問：睇戲呀？/拍拖呀？滴汗
........
此等令人啞晒的開場話，某程度大家都係expect一句「係」姐，同出一轍。然而，若然果個人真係有野同你講就會無視果句廢話，講野，無窮盡，就如句How are you 一樣 -- 諗深，開場白姐，無論何地都一樣無聊 -- 早知果時做dissertation 個topic一於研究下d非洲土著點講無聊開場白先....
Post a Comment
<< Home