邻座的话 Línzuò de huà — The Seat Next to Me

Being talked to by strangers, and what the conversation is for

A long-distance Chinese train is one of the easiest places in the country to be spoken to by somebody you have never met, and a visitor who is prepared for it enjoys it enormously. The opening is almost always the same — 你去哪儿？— and it is not an interrogation but a way of starting. What follows is a fairly predictable sequence: where you are from, what you do, how long you have been in China, whether you are married, how old you are, and how much your rent is. Those last three are the ones that unsettle Western visitors, and it is worth saying plainly that they are not rude in Chinese. Age, marital status, salary and rent are ordinary conversational currency, asked without embarrassment and answered the same way, particularly by people over about fifty. Nobody is prying: they are placing you, because those facts are how Chinese small talk establishes who somebody is. You are equally free not to answer — 差不多吧 or a vague number ends it without offence, and 反正不多 about money is a standard deflection. Bristling, on the other hand, reads as strange. The other half of it is generosity, which arrives fast and can be disconcerting. Food will be offered and should be accepted, at least a little. Help with your bag will be insisted on. A phone number or a 名片 may be pressed on you with an entirely sincere offer to help if you are ever in their city — and that offer is often meant, because hosting a visitor is a source of real pleasure. The correct response is 太客气了 and acceptance, not polite refusal. Two practical notes on the language. First, this is the best listening practice you will get: an hour of unscripted speech from a stranger with no vocabulary control whatsoever, on subjects you can guess. Second, the compliment 你中文说得不错 arrives within about ninety seconds and requires a specific kind of answer. Chinese modesty convention says you deflect it: 哪里哪里, 还差得远, 我并不太会说. Taking it flatly — 谢谢, 是的 — lands slightly oddly. Alex's answer here is exactly the shape: thank the person, deny the compliment, and say something true instead. And one thing to actually do rather than say. 让座 — giving up your seat to an elderly passenger, a pregnant woman or someone with a small child — is a strong social expectation on Chinese public transport, announced repeatedly over the loudspeakers, and reliably noticed. It costs nothing and it is the single easiest way to be a well-behaved guest.