How are you really doing?

"Hey, how are you doing?"
"I'm doing good, how about you?"
"Pretty good, pretty good."

I cannot count how many conversations I have had that began like this. Never mind the grammar mistake (doing well). There is something else about this that troubles me.

When learning Chinese, one of the first thing we learned was "Nihao", which is "hello" in Mandarin. Literally, it translates as "you good" (ni = you, hao = good). It is not a question, though, it is simply a statement used as a greeting. If you add the word "ma" afterwards, though, as in "Nihao ma?", then is becomes a question; essentially, "How are you doing? Are you good?" However, if you ask someone you just met this question, they will likely respond with a very confused look. In China, you don't just go around asking people how they are doing. You only ask this to someone you know very well. Even our laoshi (teacher), who was Italian but fluent in English and Mandarin, told us that when she first went to the U.S. and people asked her how she was doing, she was confused. "Why do you want to know how I'm doing?" she asked. It's a fair question.

All of this made me think about the types of conversations we have, most of which look a lot like the made up one at the beginning of this post. I realized that America is probably one of the only cultures that habitually lies in response to personal questions from almost total strangers as a form of greeting. When was the last time someone actually told you how they were doing when you asked them? When was the last time you actually wanted to know? I don't think we should all cease using this as a greeting. The fact is that it will probably become just a routine greeting, much like "you good" in Chinese, or even saying "go with God" for "goodbye" in Spanish (Dios = god, adios = goodbye). I just think it is worth being aware of how we are using phrases like this, how their meanings and connotations are changing, and where they originally came from. And every once and a while, when you're talking to a close friend, maybe ask them "Nihao ma?"--"how are you really doing?"