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Comment by joenathan | Hacker News Reader

The writing in this article is very difficult to understand.

>"At a restaurant with friends, a delicate choreography will have one person carefully select a few choice morsels from the common bowl and place them on a neighbor’s plate. It is a small, perfect gesture."

A "perfect gesture"? What does that even mean?

And this paragraph:

>"Take, for instance, the Beijing tradition of man zǒu. Man means “slowly” and zǒu means “walk,” or colloquially “walk slowly.” Man zǒu is the tender goodbye offered from every small shopkeeper I have visited in Beijing. It is usually spoken in a quiet voice, and somehow sounds so much more sincere than “Have a nice day.” Sometimes I will make the trip to my neighborhood laundry with a single shirt for cleaning, just as an excuse to hear the “man zǒu” when I leave the shop."

What is "man zǒu"? A spoken farewell? If so what is the significance of saying "walk slowly"?

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> A "perfect gesture"? What does that even mean?

It means "read the sentence again, this time from a figurative perspective." From my perspective, the whole sentence is a play on how the meal is a delicate dance, and how this act is like a perfectly executed move.

> What is "man zǒu"?

>> Man zǒu is the tender goodbye offered from every small shopkeeper I have visited in Beijing. It is usually spoken in a quiet voice, and somehow sounds so much more sincere than “Have a nice day.”

I mean it's literally right there, I'm not sure how you missed it. It sounds similar to how American English speakers would use "Take care."

A better colloquial translation of "man zǒu" would be "take it easy".

I like this, but I also think the author did a good job of describing how the Chinese is much more heartfelt than the Western "take it easy". Maybe because its actually providing a recommendation instead of a vague directive.

"Take it easy" isn't particularly vague to me. Consider "it." What is "it?" Whatever it happens to be, there are many alternative ways to take it. You could take it hard, or grudgingly, or angrily. The directive is instead to take it easy.

Yes but there's no advice on how to take it easy. It's just saying to do so, which is pretty unoriginal advice. Why recommend that someone take it hard, grudgingly, or angrily? It feels less sincere because there's no personalization to it. Maybe "vague" wasn't the right word, instead I'd call it "generic".

I see "take it easy" to mean something like "try to live your life in such a way that you can still be productive/effective/whatever without stressing out about things in ways that would raise your blood pressure unnecessarily. If something is important, feeling anxious about it doesn't make you any more able to accomplish it. You can think about something to plan it; and you can think about something while you're doing it—but outside of these productive uses of your mental energy, you should never let anything weigh on, or especially linger in, your mind. This will make you live longer, which will make me happy as I won't have to see you die before I do."

Of course, most people don't really know what they mean when they say it—but their intent usually lines up with the paragraph above.

Play with intonation and pauses.

When I moved to the UK was the first time I was introduced to "how are you doing?" followed by someone walking straight past me without waiting for a reply. It took me months of replying after someone and getting annoyed at how rude they were before it sunk in that "how are you?" in the intonation commonly used, is not a question but a greeting, and that it was most certainly not an invitation to start a conversation.

Basically you can't tell without considering intonation whether these utterances are just pleasantries, or heartfelt statements and questions.

I found it very enlightening to play with intonation a few years back when talking to shop assistants. You can give a flat "how are you?" that everyone interprets as a greeting, and just keep talking. But just a slight intonation change followed by a pause, and suddenly you get near total strangers pouring their heart out to you about their day.

Same thing goes for things like "take it easy". Throw it out, and it's just a bland pleasantry. Pause and go "take it easy" and pause again while looking at someone, and it totally changes character.

I think that delivery matters much more than the actual words.

People in London don't talk to strangers. So if a stranger does say anything to you, even just "Hi", it's deeply concerning, bordering on alarm.

I was talking about going up to strangers unmotivated, but co-workers etc. or shop staff, or in social settings.

But even in London you'd be surprised at how friendly reactions you can get when approaching total strangers as long as you're to the point about why you're approaching and particularly makes it clear you don't want to sell anything (or collect money).

Your downfall if approaching strangers in London would be if you think you can do it slowly and casually and start with pleasantries, because perversely that has come to imply you're trying to butter people up prior to a sales pitch, whereas genuine approaches now are forced to be direct and straight to the point. That works, and gets friendly reactions.

It's pretty much the exact same as "take it easy". Source: lived in Beijing for a year and a half.

"Don't be in a hurry to leave."

走 zou can mean "walk", but it's the normal way to say "leave". 慢走 is just the opposite of 快走 "get out!"

This is always how I think of 慢走. "Oh really? leaving so soon? It was good to see you" - this kind of sentiment.

Walking slowly is a metaphor for living a fulfilling life where you enjoy the things in front of you to the fullest.

After all, when you are walking slowly, you can enjoy the sounds of the birds, the feel of the grass and land beneath your feet, and the smell of the lilacs.

But when you rush, your mind is elsewhere, busy, concerned, away from the moment you are truly in.

Any one who wishes the former upon me is a good friend of mine.

It's funny, because every time I've heard it it was when I was leaving a restaurant; my first understanding was that the owner/waiter was wishing me to go home slowly after having eaten well so I can enjoy my meal a little bit more.

I figured it just meant "take care in each step so you don't trip and fall", because it certainly originated before well-maintained pedestrian walkways existed. "Don't slip on ice", "don't step in dung", and "don't break your hip, uncle" sound analogous to me.

From the description, I understand is something like the shopkeeper slowly walking behind you as you go out of the shop. Not sure if that's what is meant, but I've seen that in some shops in Argentina. It's like an unspoken goodbye? But here, depending on the kindness and general attitude of the shopkeeper, it can be seen as anything between polite and creepy.

No, "man zou" is what the shopkeeper says, it's basically the equivalent of "take care"

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