This past week I traveled with an old friend who likes to talk to strangers and tends to be curious about everything and everybody. Which, of course, adds greatly to the fun of travel. Not only greeting everyone he passes, it seemed that he was able to begin a lively conversation with anyone, from hotel and housekeeping staff to waiters to shop clerks to police on the street to dogwalkers, often within minutes extracting brief life histories and even laughter. I was reminded of this when almost the first piece of the day I read from my Quartz newsletter came up, and can be seen at this clickable link:
https://qz.com/1019699/one-of-the-most-common-questions-in-american-small-talk-is-seen-as-rude-in-much-of-the-world/