When I came to China I came across many things which seemed weird to me. In my later blogs I will share some of them.

Starting from Chinese Greetings, today I will share my experience of encountering, understanding, curiosity and finally adaption of the most interesting greeting “Ni chi fan le ma” or have you eaten already? What is the background of this particular greeting in China?

I asked many Chinese friends who told different history or reasons behind this greeting.

1) Chinese people do not have religious, aesthetic or intellectual taboos for food. Anything which has nutrition is not wasted. Every food had medical value and interestingly Chinese verb “to eat” and “to take medicine” is the same. There is old Chinese verb “yi shi wei tian” (民以食为天) which means, eating is as important as the sky.

2) The greeting is said to be the product of “Great Chinese Famine” (1858-1961) which is also called “Three bitter years” (三年大饥荒Sānnián dà jīhuāng). In the absence of food, this question uttered so many times especially when friends/ acquaintances saw each other and asked ‘Have you eaten?’. It literally replaced the existed greetings.

This greeting does not mean that the person wants to invite you to eat with him/her. Another thing is often misunderstood by foreigners; it is not the question asked as greeting at any time rather it is asked at the normal times of eating. For example, it is awkward to ask this question at 12 a.m. or 9, 10 a.m. So, this question is often replied as: “I have eaten” or “No, after a while” or “No, I am going to eat now”.