Hi!

I've have a weird experience. It certainly relates to the difference i cultures.

This weekend I was invited too my friends to have 火锅 huo3guo1 hotpot. Is was soo good and I ate very much. I was even a bit ashamed of eating that much, hehe.. However, when we had finished eating, this happened:

A. Whaa, that was soo delicious! I had too much too eat..
B. Today we ate very little.
A. What? We've been eating double as much as I usually eat.
B. I ate much. I eat very quickly. You didn't eat much.
A. ???
B. Today we only had... say, one kilo of meat.
A. That's much.
B. It's very little.

I had a similar experience once before. At that time I aslo had an awful lot of food in my belly and the host said -Why do you eat so little. You don't like it!
I had already told her it was delicious. She persisted. -You ate very little.

What is the point of that sort of talk?

I guess it is some sort of polite ceremony because they are so nice all the time, but I actually find it disturbing, in fact rude.

Sweden is, nowadays, a very informal country. If I go see a doctor, talk to my teacher or meet the prime minister, I'd call them all by first name. "Mr." this and "Dr." that sounds quite archaic to my ears, though I'm more used to it in English.

In Chinese, however, there seems to be quite a bit of this formalness left in the language. This frightens me somewhat. How will I know whether I can use 老王 or whether I should use 王先生, for example? Or just use the full name? I'm a bit fearful of offending people, since I have no experience to go by. Is there a CPod lesson or Qing Wen on this?