Greeting is the most common activity observed in daily verbal communication. There are differences between our Chinese culture and western culture.

Firstly, in China, we tend to greet each other by raising the following questions: 

• Where are you going? 

• Where have you been?

• Have you had your lunch? 

• Reading a book? (to describe the action of another person)

When greeted by these questions, the Westerners may not take them as a way of greeting, but an inquiry of information, even an invasion of privacy. 

Then what is the western way of greeting? When we were English beginners, we were taught to recite the 3-stage greeting pattern as follows: 

    --- How are you? 

    --- I'm fine, thank you. And you? 

    --- I'm fine, too. 

In daily life, "How are you" may be one way of greeting each other, but the answer may not always be "I'm fine, thank you. And you?" People usually respond "Good" or "Not bad". The most commonly used greetings are: 

• Good morning / afternoon / evening. (or simply Morning in casual gatherings)

• Hi / Hey / Hello. 

• How are you doing? (This is not the same with "What are you doing?". The answer might be "good", "not bad", "great".)

• How's life? / How are things? 

• How's everything? / How are things? / How are things going? 

• What's up? / What's new? / What're you up to? / What's going on?

"How do you do?" is what we were taught to greet a stranger at the first meeting. I remember once, when I used this greeting to an American teacher, he was surprised. Later, he told me that this way of greeting was a little weird, as it was commonly used in 1960s. According to him, it was a little out-of-date. 

Secondly, in China, if we met strangers and we happen to look into each other's eyes, the most common response is to evade eye contact immediately. While in western countries, people smile and greet each other.