The question 'Have you eaten yet?' or 'Where are you going?' seems to need no answer, but turns out to be an excuse to hold two people together, to stop and pay attention to the other person, to make sure that the other person's life is still peaceful.
When I was young, I didn't understand why every time someone met my family in the market, they would often start the conversation with: "Going to the market?" or "Where are we going?", weren't the answers obvious?
A little older, when we met at the cinema, I was carrying popcorn and soft drinks, and a friend from afar still asked, "Are you going to the movies?", then came closer and asked more specifically, "What movie? Who are you going with?". When returning home for Tet, my father's old friends would greet each other with another question, "Have you eaten yet?".
Such polite greetings (which are actually questions) used to leave me with great concern, until I began to imagine that something "higher than the feast" of the Vietnamese people is inherently in those seemingly harmless questions.
When I learned about greetings, I only knew how to greet using the syntax that included the word "hello" in the sentence, not knowing that asking questions was also a way to greet, especially in intimate relationships. At that time, people asked just to wait for the other person to respond with a sentence, from there the meeting story continued.
The question "Where are you going?" or "Going to the market?" seems to need no answer when one person is carrying a bamboo basket with a myriad of fresh items, but it turns out to be an excuse to hold the two people together, to stop and pay attention to the other person, to make sure that the other person's life is still peaceful.
After leaving the market or the cinema, people can make another appointment, with more time and a more comfortable space to talk; or they can go their separate ways, returning to their own lives and many other concerns.
Among the greetings, the one that impressed me the most was "Have you eaten yet?". From a cultural perspective, Vietnamese people grew up with the lullaby of the fragrant smell of new rice, on the solid foundation of a long-standing rice civilization.
The farming days of "the husband plowing, the wife planting, the buffalo harrowing" are also the birthplace of the nation's language, so it is not difficult to understand why the image of rice grains, rice fields, eating rice, and feasting appear in many figurative expressions of our nation.
Eating is a symbolic activity in Vietnamese culture. Eating is not only the embodiment of community rituals such as weddings, feasts... but also the crystallization of ethics. Through meals, grandparents teach their children and grandchildren to "watch the pot when eating, watch the direction when sitting", from eating, they generalize resourcefulness and ingenuity in life "eat smart to be full, dress smart to be warm"...
Because eating is no longer simply a basic need for survival but contains many nuances and layers of meaning, when people ask each other "Have you eaten yet?" instead of greeting, "food is the beginning of a conversation" gives rise to another implication.
First of all, any greeting style, whether it is a "bookish" greeting (with the word "hello" in the sentence) or a question, carries a message expressing affection and respect for the other person.
When greeting someone by asking about their meal, the questioner probably has no other intention than to show interest. By the time the other person honestly answers about what time they ate, or why they still haven’t had a grain of rice in their stomach, the questioner also learns more about their schedule, concerns, and other aspects of their life, allowing the conversation to flow smoothly from there.
Our ancestors believed that: "Only with food can we practice morality", so to make the conversation more meaningful, the waiter needs to warm his stomach first. That is also the reason why the Vietnamese dining table, in addition to food, is also full of stories: eating a full meal makes the conversation more engaging, and the meal is also more enjoyable because the spiritual food is fun and lively.
When my uncles and aunts asked my father: "Have you eaten yet?", it was like an invitation to stay and eat. Because no matter how my father answered, they would warmly keep my whole family sitting around the Tet feast: the elders, in the intoxication of spring wine in the chilly weather of the Northern climate, sitting and chatting after a year (or a few) without seeing each other; the women and children busy preparing the tray, setting the table, chatting and laughing... There was something warm and magical about it, because the whole scene originated from the single question: "Have you eaten yet?".
"A greeting is more important than a feast" - a feast is considered a sign of hospitality, but it is still a few levels lower than a greeting. What Vietnamese people value is not material abundance, but fullness of feelings.
When someone is no longer greeted, he can implicitly understand that he has been pushed out of the other person's life, his existence no longer has meaning to them, and most of all, the other person no longer respects him.
We greet someone to acknowledge their presence, out of respect for them, and also as a way to respect our own dignity. The greeting can have many different faces to express the level of intimacy of the relationship: formal, polite when there is a certain distance between the two; friendly, open when people become more attached over time; but its meaning is generally encapsulated in two words "respect".
I realized: the simple, affectionate font of the greeting carries a whole ideology imbued with Vietnamese character, where people value human relationships and character in the community above all else.
Now, I am no longer surprised by sudden questions instead of greetings. Instead, I think I can respond enthusiastically and sincerely, as a way to show my gratitude for the care and respect they have given me. And when I have the opportunity to meet someone again, I will not hesitate to ask about food and drink, to take the opportunity to confide in them. What memories will be written, what relationships will be more connected, what souls will be more imbued with Vietnamese thinking, when I say hello: "Have you eaten yet?".
KIEU OANH/VnExpress