I'm good?

When someone asks me, "how are you?" the large majority of the time I respond: "good," or "fine." It's almost automatic - even on days where I am closer to "really struggling with yet another stomach bug," the word "fine" will still jump out of my mouth, and once my brain kicks in I'll end up qualifying that initial response with "well, actually not so good today."

Translating my typical response in English, when a Peruvian asks me, "cómo estás?" I always say "bien!" I've recently noticed that Peruvians probably think I'm really weird for doing this: I have never heard a single Peruvian say "bien" when I ask them this question. Instead, the almost universal response here is "acá, más o menos." The literal translation of this reply is "here, more or less," and it's used to express a sentiment along the lines of "you know, I'm here, just living my life, some things are good, some things are bad."

I am now a little self-conscious about my "bien"s, (even though I am in truth usually doing pretty good), and try to remember to use the Peruvian response instead. But I think it's an interesting cultural difference: in the success-oriented American tradition, we are more prone to keep our problems under wraps and put on a brave face - problems are things to be dealt with, and we are always "fine." In contrast, a rural Peruvian town is much more of a communal culture: problems are not only accepted in the societal mindset as the normal business of life, but they are shared and commiserated over together. That's why you won't here them claiming that they're "bien" - they know everybody's got problems, so why try and hide it?