Comment by ganomi

I once had a similar situation with the question "Is everything OK?", which is slightly different from "How are you?".

I am a German living in Germany and i once caused a car crash that made another car spin into the ditch on the side of the road. That car was driven by a family of Russian heritage.

After getting out of the car i spoke to the other parties wife first and I asked "Is everything OK?" with what i ment: "Is there something very wrong beyond the things that are obviously wrong. Like, is your child bleeding to death or is it only the car damage."

But the woman did not understand it this way at all and was a little bit furious because to her obviously nothing was OK.

Of course she had every reason to be upset, but the likelihood of a German interpreting my question in a rude way would have been way lower.