On my daily walks through Silicon Valley, I’ve noticed something small but persistent: if a hello happens, I am almost always the one who initiates it.

It’s not that people are unfriendly. Quite the opposite—this is a place full of thoughtful, driven, often generous people. But they are also, like me, frequently elsewhere: in their heads, in their work, in the quiet urgency of whatever problem they are trying to solve. 

I know the look because I wear it myself. I’ve been told, more than once, that someone passed me on the levee and I didn’t even register their presence. Recently, someone asked if it had been me, walking and absentmindedly doing what could only be described as a hand jive. It was. I was listening to the Grease soundtrack.

And yet, even in that inward state, I find myself drawn to say hello.

I learned it from my parents. They spent decades in a Southern California town where they were, for a long time, the only Chinese family for miles. It would have been easy, in that kind of isolation, to keep to themselves. But they didn’t. They are, by nature, greeters. To this day, well into their eighties and nineties, they will strike up conversations with strangers: an Uber driver, a cashier, the person standing next to them in line. 

The conversations begin simply: “How are you? How long have........

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