Different conversational rules - P.151 Discussion#1

I like to take a trip in Taiwan, so I have a lot of opportunities to ask for directions to strangers. In my experience, the people of southern Taiwan are friendly than northern Taiwan. When I need to ask people the way, the people of southern Taiwan is always enthusiastic to tell where I am, even take me to my destination personally. On the other hand, the most people of northern Taiwan are not so enthusiastic and they don’t even answer when they see strangers asking for directions.

Not only asking for directions, there are some differences from our conversations. The people of southern Taiwan are enthusiastic, just like my family. They will ask many questions for my trip, and tell me where good scenic spots or food are. The people of northern Taiwan usually only answer my questions, and they will not take the initiative to say anything.

In short, although we are in the same country, different people have different conversational rules, we should be careful of this.