If you meet a person you know, walking on the street...
what's your first approach-question?

a) how is your business?
b) how are you?

How are you.

Hopefully preceeded by a 'Hello' or 'Hi'.

I live in Yunnan by 2 years, i'm not in Kmg. I received "how are you" just by real friends. (18% of cases). on other 82% of cases ( i don't consider them friends), "how is your business", followed many times by technical questions: (rent, about "keys" of my job, how i make this, how i make that, what about your visa)

more times if I travel, "ah, you're rich you can afford to travel.."

I'm a little sick of this. Any inputs?

In previous 3 years I lived in Shanghai, 100% of times was "How are you"

My feedback till now is that many local laowai here in Yunnan are sneaky, jealous, not fair. Local chinese are often better.

I also believe that our mind makes the reality at our eyes. For a long period I tried to don't have bad thinking about relations and doing my best at the approach.
No way, I have to confirm what I said just before, it's not my attitude, it's really like this.

I often don't like local laowai living in Yunnan. Is it in Kunming the same for others? I guess in a city is a little better. I see that working visa problems increased this status, generally.

Any input is more than welcomed.

so if you don't like someone and/or don't trust them, just avoid them.

if you noticed a higher proportion of less trustworthy/likeable people here than elsewhere, you may have a sociological thesis on your hand.

maybe it's the yunnan climate that makes people sneakier?

Right Magnifico, but this changed me also a lot.

we're "social animals", difficult to jump directly to be an hermit.

I should avoid a lot of people. I tried to be clear like "wtf do you care always about how is going my business...", no way, many persons are in the loop..

First you need to understand what "How are you？" means. When we ask that question, we don't really care how you are for the most part. It's a greeting. Only to my closest friends or co-workers do I really care how they are. It's the same when Chinese people ask: "你吃饭了吗？" They don't really care for the most part if you ate or not. It's just a habit or custom of asking that question.

yes, this aspect is already valued. I don't think that "how is your business" is the same of greeting of "have you ate". I've just considered the real "how are you" form real friends.

@liumingke1234: Not in every country people say "how are you" and dont mean it. (And also not in every country people go to bars and pubs to get wasted and take someone home).
@blue: Kunming can be the same, because more and more people from the countryside move to the city. Doing business and earning money is just a new thing to them. That's, at least from my point of view, the reason why everyone is so obsessed with business, making money, buying cars and clothes. If I were you, I wouldnt spend so much time with those kind of people. It just makes you angry and you waste your time.

Besides, whenever I meet people for the first time. In most cases (85%) it's like this:
'hello. Where are you from?'
'Germany'
'Oh you had this great political leader, right?!' / 'Wasnt it you that killed or the Jewish' / 'What a shame you lost the war"/ 'You did a gread job in the war against Russia'/ 'I love fiel marshal XY'/ 'Hitler was a big fan of cars' / Or they just do the Hitler salute

The other 15% are: 'Your economy is soo strong'/ 'Your products have the best quality in the world' Or 'I love German cars. If I had enough money, I would buy one'/ 'You are so beautiful... do you have a boyfriend?'

To be honest, I'd rather get the 'how is your business " question

Of course not in every country. I never said in every country. I'm speaking as an American. Just like not in every country doing an 'okay' sign with your hand means 'okay'. It's an insult in some countries.