@linguaphile Oy. Similar to the Italians. Eat, eat, you didn’t eat enough, have more. You have to refuse several times until they give up.
The thing is people should understand that when someone is new amongst us, they may not know the customs. I run into this with my inlaws. I’ll ask, “what’s the rule?” When something like this comes up and their reply is, “there is no rule.” Which is an outright lie. Well, from their perspective they are not lying, but they think any idiot should know. Of course, they are being ignorant to ignore there simply are cutural differences, and they have all sorts of expectations in their heads. They actually acknowledge cultural differences pretty quick when the gringos are acting like, well, gringos. LOL. If I ask my SIL directly is that a cutural difference maybe, her husband asks also some times, she is offended and says stop trying to say it because we are a different culture. All I can think is it is some sort of insecurtiy, because from her husband and my perspective, we are just trying to understand the differences, not say ours is better. If i say to her I think we miscommunicated she thinks I am criticizing her English and she must have said something incorreclty or understood something incorrectly. But, her English is extremely good, it has nothing to do with language usually, it usually has to do with our own perceptions on things and how we hear them. Can happen between two native born Americans, it happens all of the time, but she takes it very personally.
My point is being aware of cultural differences is a good thing I think, and I usually catch the differences from region to region like you do.
Midwest hug when we greet each other after a long time away. Northeast kiss on the cheek, maybe an added hug for very close relations and friends. There are more, but I am going to make a question about it instead of side tracking too much on this Q.