You may have heard, time and time again, that Chinese cannot speak English. Nothing is further than the truth; In fact, almost all the Chinese can speak English! The trouble is that, for the vast majority of them, their vocabulary is limited to only one word, which is the word “hello” (pronounced: “ha-lo!!!”).
The day before heading off to China I have been given a book about religious practices in China, which I am slowly reading through. It describes in depth Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism, but does not mention “ha-lo!” at all; this is spite of the fact that “ha-lo!” seems to be a religion in Cina, or at least a major ritual.
The “ha-lo!” is not spoken as much as barked (from a short distance) or shouted (from a long distance). The person “ha-lo!”ing will almost always wear a silly grin, the type which, when worn by three-year-olds, usually means “mommy mommy, guess what, I’ve spread poo all over the bedroom walls”. As a foreigner, expect to encounter this Universal Greeting wherever you go. Similar to the saluting habits in the Israeli military, if a lone person encounters you he will “ha-lo!” you by himself, while if a group of people encounters you then just one representative will do the “ha-lo!”ing for all of them (children are obviously excluded from this rule, all of them will “ha-lo!”). Unlike the Israeli military, no place is safe from “ha-lo!”ing (including the toilets) and you may often be “ha-lo!”ed from behind, probably in an attempt to get you to turn around (this is a very fun pasttime).
If, from what I wrote, you think that “ha-lo!” is simply a way to greet foreigners, you are mistaken; it is much, much more. As far as the Chinese are concerned, “ha-lo!” is not just a greeting, it is an entire way of communication with those tall, white-skinned, big-nosed freaks. For example, let’s say I have a short conversation with someone (maybe a waitress in a restaurant or a traveller on the train). A few minutes later that person wants to attract my attention in order to ask me some question. Note that by this point we had already established the fact that I can speak some Chinese, and the person is planning to use Chinese to ask me the said question. How will he address me? You should have guessed this bit by now; the answer is, of course, “ha-lo!”.