Chinese Greetings In the early 1980s —— chi le mei you? 吃了没有 Have you eaten something? In the middle 1980s —— jin tian kan shen me jie mu mei you? 今天看什么节目没有 What programmes did you see today? In the middle 1990s —— ban jia le ma? 搬家了吗 Have you decided the day you move? In the 21st century —— zui jin zai na fa cai? 最近在哪发财 What fields are you investing in recently? The up-to-date phrase —— zui jin qv na lv you le? 最近去哪旅游了 Where have you been for your holiday? It is not just a simple matter of common greeting like "ni hao 你好". The conventional greetings among Chinese are just like a mirror which reflects the changes of our society and the life style and habits of its citizens. The latest greeting pattern sentence is that “zui jin qv na lv you le”. Nowadays more Chinese people live a better life so that they can afford to go on several trips every year. Many people will go abroad to see the outside world on some holidays like Spring Festival, Labor Day or the golden week National Day. Dating back to the early 1980s, common people would often ask chi le mei you when they saw each other. Definitely it was not because we love food while it is because in the era of material shortage, people’s life seems much too monotonous. Then three meals a day became a hot topic. Till the middle 1980s, the spring breeze of reforming and opening made the national economy recover quickly. The purchasing power increased a lot. The “four big items” took the place of the “four small items” gradually. In the middle 1990s, the first sentence that the acquaintances would say when they met was ban jia le ma. At that time Chinese government started housing reforming. The construction of adequate housing projects was under way. In the 21st century, the patterns of greetings are also increasingly more diverse than before. For those friends who haven’t seen each other for a long time, they always say zui jin zai na fa cai. With the development of the market economy, people accumulate a lot of fortune. Due to the popularization of English, the sentence that sounds familiar to us young people is ha luo 哈罗 (hello). What's the way of greeting in your country? ********************************** Four Items at different times *** bicycle, sewing machine, radio and watch(1950s-1970s) ***colour TV, fridge, washing machine and air conditioner(1980s-1990s) ***cell phone, computer, car and house(now)