I have a slightly related experience. My wife is from Sri Lanka, and while she haven't herself lived in poverty, I recognize the social structure keeping it in place.
As a trivial example, in Sri Lankan culture, you don't say "thank you", "you're welcome" or give anycompliments. Instead, it is common to tell someone they look fat when you see them after a long time.
Interestingly, the Internet is changing this. My wife has a lot of her school friends in her Facebook, and people are starting to complement each other on the uploaded photos. I believe this is a result of internationalization (many Sri Lankans have moved to Australia, Italy and France) and the percieved freedom when not having to talk face-to-face.
As a trivial example, in Sri Lankan culture, you don't say "thank you", "you're welcome" or give anycompliments. Instead, it is common to tell someone they look fat when you see them after a long time.
I am not sure what you mean by your example. Telling someone they look fat when you haven't seen them for a while is a kin to saying you have done well for yourself and would be a complement. Mostly it just sounds like a difference in culture that changes when the culture around you changes.
Interesting. My Chinese officemate greeted me with "I see you have more weight" when I came back after three months. Is it a popular thing in China too? Or was he just being a dick? (NB I really did have more weight, but everyone else was too polite to mention it...)
I dunno about China and Sri Lanka specifically, but in some cultures, being fat is seen as attractive. This is probably a signaling mechanism, being able to afford additional food and not needing to perform manual labor means that you are more successful. Being fat isn't so attractive in the West because having a sedentary job and access to excessive fat and carbs doesn't really signal anything much.
Fat is never regarded as 'attractive' at least in my native country (I'm from Vietnam. I believe Vietnam has a very similar culture compared to China.)
The most intuitive way to explain why 'being fatter' is regarded as a complement is this: People often say 'you look different' when they see each other after a long time. Now of course there are two way provided the person looks relatively okay, that is being fatter or thinner. However, thinner might imply that he/she was sick or something that caused him/her to lose weight. So saying 'you look fatter' is a way of saying you're doing well. In fact, Asian people tend to be thinner -- even in the US -- gttp://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparebar.jsp?ind=91&cat=2 . So it's _understandable_ why such Asian countries don't consider 'getting fat' as an offensive thing. Also it's more like a figure of speech now.
As a trivial example, in Sri Lankan culture, you don't say "thank you", "you're welcome" or give anycompliments. Instead, it is common to tell someone they look fat when you see them after a long time.
Interestingly, the Internet is changing this. My wife has a lot of her school friends in her Facebook, and people are starting to complement each other on the uploaded photos. I believe this is a result of internationalization (many Sri Lankans have moved to Australia, Italy and France) and the percieved freedom when not having to talk face-to-face.