BONJOUR, MONSIEUR -- UH, UHM, BONJour!

I have been having fun with cultural things ever since I got to France.  I have always prided myself as being comfortable in France and Italy because I speak the language.  So this is France.  Am I comfortable?  Oh, yes.  Also making a lot of funny observations, no, I take that back, they aren't funny observations.  They are factual observations of perfectly correct behavior that triggers a reflex in my funny bone.  The hands-down winner in the category is the little guy who is in the urinal stall next to the one that I chose.  I pull up, get in position, unzip,and before I get 1/8 of an inch down on the zipper, the little guy looks over the partition and says, "Bonjour, Monsieur."  [Hello,Sir.]  So I respond to his smiling face with a chirpy "Bonjour."  Then I turn to business and file it away as being caused by an excess in politeness and respect.  As I stood there I remembered the fact that when we were traveling from Corps to La Salette, everyone who boarded the bus greeted the driver and the driver dutifully greeted them back.  Come on, passengers and bus drivers exchanging greetings?
Then there was the couple of times that I had to stand in line for bus tickets.  I had forgotten how adept the french are in insinuating themselves between you and the shared target destination.  It's really quite humorous.  They know that is is considered rude to cut a line.  They also know that if they do that they will be called out by the person who was cut and be publicly humiliated.  So they slip and slide and every so gently carve out their space right before your unsuspecting eyes.  But not your body.  Your body can feel every single move.  Slightly daring sometimes, smooth and comforting at all times.  They are absolutely ingenious at this kind of behavior.  If they don't succeed in outmaneuvering you, [this is, remember, a "contact" sport] they will, from their frustrated three quarters angle shot sweetly look at you and say something really brilliant, like, "Please permit me to ask a question that will require only 5 seconds."  How are you going to say "No?"
Oh, yeah?  I dare you.
So, not you're going to hear the whole 300 word question, including footnotes and watch the ensuing ticket purchase transaction take place right by your side.  You'll be so flim-flam-bamboozled that some one else from the opposite side will have taken advantage of your hapless situation and proceeded to enter into a transaction ahead of you.  I guarantee that you will be so impressed by the whole sensuous tango of the whole thing that you will not even be angry.  You'll buy your ticket and move on, full of wonder at what had just happened to you.
Therefore, beware of strange things that can happen to you if you ever get to France.  I suggest you come.  The people are more fun to watch than the scenery.

HEY! HOW YA DOIN'? -- I'M O.K., YOU?

See this fuzzy cartoon character?  Just like the question in the title.  Fuzzy.  Not fuzzy to us, in North America, but fuzzy and mysterious in other parts of the world.  We ask each other this question only because we don't want to stop at a pure "Hello."  It is so ingrained to hear, "OK" that when someone really says the truth, like, "I got this tooth that's killing me" we are caught off guard and all we can come up with is, "Uh, gee, umm, sorry to hear  that."  It's so bad that for the most part we just say "OK" or "Fine" and get it over with.  We then go on our way and the friend leaves because there is nothing else to say.  Now, before you say something innocent like, "We Americans are really weird" please allow me to put you at ease.
France is slightly more complicated.  It goes like this:
9:00 AM  "Bonjour" (Good day) "Bonjour." followed by a handshake...obligatory.
9:01 AM  "Ca va?" (It's all good) "Ca va."
9:01:30 AM "Bien dormi?" (You sleep well?) "Oui, merci." (Yes, thanks)
I have never dared to tell the truth during this exchange.  If I had the least bit of discomfort, I would never declare it because I have no idea how the interlocutor would handle it.  I have to admit that when I first arrived in France, I had to translate the culture of the whole interchange into our abbreviated form.  It was not easy.  It was surprising for me to see the greeter just leave as though nothing had happened.  It seemed to me that such intimate information should lead to something better than an abrupt separation.  But hey, "C'est la vie."
Italy really is different too.  Similar, but more, how shall I say, Italian?
"A, Paolo, buon giorno!" (Hey, Paul, good day)  "Come stai?" (How are you?)
"Bene.  E tu?" (Fine.  And you?)
"Bene, pure.  Hai ben dormito?" (I'm fine too.  Did you sleep well?")
"Si.  Grazie.  E tu?  Buoni Sogni?" (Yes.  You?  Sweet dreams?")
"Si.  Tutto bene, grazie.  Un cafe, Paolo."  (Yes.  All's well, thanks.  How about a coffee, Paul?")
Notice how personal the interchange is, without being intrusive?  After it's all over, we Americans figure that we're never going to get any work done that day.
The Philippines have a rather interesting cultural pattern about greetings.  It is mandatory to greet everyone that you encounter upon first laying eyes on the individual.  "Good morning" (or whatever part of the day it is) is all it takes.  It is also mandatory to take leave upon separation, but this is rarely a separatory blessing, it is just a simple, "I'm leaving now."  It is also mandatory to greet someone with an invitation to eat if that someone happens to appear while you are at table.  We don't do it the same way.  In the Philippines it is a simple "Let's eat."  But remember, it is just a mandatory greeting, not an invitation.  I know.  It took me a little while before I learned the difference between the greeting and the invitation.  So, the next time you burst in on Filipinos while they are eating and they say, "Oh hello, Father.  Let's eat."  Remember that you're supposed to say the equivalent to our American "I'm fine", which is, "No thanks, I just ate."  This not a lie.  It is true that you just ate yesterday.  Just like, we all know that you are fine, but that you'll be better when you get back from the chiropractor.  
I have many vignettes about language culture that I could entertain you with.  A few of them are errors that I made along the road of my short life.  Most of them in public, if you please.  Some in Italy and some in the Philippines, but perhaps the funniest one happened in Tijuana, Mexico.
We were talking to the owner of a landscaping company.  This was a woman in her early 40's, very sharp, very well educated and very business oriented.  I and my assistant were taking her around the property of the manufacturing plant where I was the director of human resources and the outside "environment."  As we were talking about the way to trim and maintain the edges of the property along the bottom of the chain-link fence, I used a word that I imported from another language which I thought meant "edge" or "border."  I saw her face stiffen and relax all in the space of a couple of nano-seconds.  I saw my assistant blush to the point of wilting the nearby flowers.  We all stayed in character for the 15 minutes  that it took for the meeting to come to term.  We shook hands (Mexican women have good handshakes) and parted.  When we (I and the assistant) got to my office, he softly announced that I had used a slang word spoken on street corners to name the male member.  All I could do was to laugh.  Then, I wrote a letter of apology to the lady.  I thanked her for staying cool.  I also pleaded that she continue to speak to me in Spanish during our business encounters.  Which she did, after we finished laughing at my linguistic faux-pas the next time she came to examine the work of her crew.  If I we ever meet again, we will speak Spanish, as usual, but only after revisiting the humorous side of my moment of cultural indecency.