Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Bumface
I don't know how universal it is, but the social expected transaction of "How's it going?", "Good", regardless of how it's going is actually pretty strange.
If anyone answers that honestly, it's often super awkward and unexpected. But if you don't ask, you're also a jerk.
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In sociology class, it was called social scripting. IMO the many first world social scripting interactions have gotten weird to assume everyone should always be OK. Social scripting makes way more sense if you have experience with multiple cultures other than just North American culture.
The Chinese social script was weird to me growing up, but after understanding it it makes sense. I realized it's technically still a call to action if someone diverges and says they're not doing well. Chinese one isn't, "How's it going?" it's "Have you eaten yet?" it's rooted in a historical expectation of potential poverty and famine, so if someone said no, people band together to ensure their friends and extended family doesn't literally starve. It's not close to being as awkward if someone says, "No, I'm not doing well."
This is further extended to the gift bringing thing mentioned earlier. Someone offering hospitality would receive gifts to ensure someone willing to do that doesn't end up worse off for hosting others. This is less of a thing due to rising standards of living in the last few decades, but I'm often surprised how many of my parents and my generation don't know why it is done. Even people my grandmother's age, not all of them seemed to know the root of why we did things.
I used to chat with my grandmother a lot and I guess she'd explain stuff like this to me... even if it was in parallel to her rants about the difficult life she lived.
Postpartum confinement was another she explained the logic in detail to me. In hindsight, these beliefs make total scientific sense and doesn't feel superstitious for things like, "Why a lady should reduce showers for the first 28-100 days after post partum". My grandmother used to complain people just did certain cultural things without knowing why. Knowing why helped to maintain the factual reasoning and avoid doing things wrong according to her. It also allowed these cultural activities to evolve and maintain relevancy in modern times according to her.