It's guts.

Chinese lack them.

Otherwise they'd say it to your face.

I'm guessing you live in a small city in China.

In big cities they don't even bother saying hello. (or more accurately, 'Herro')

I agree with ludo, its like you don't exist in Beijing.
Closes i got, was a cute tinny smile from this chick walking on the side walk.
Oh ! wait! she probably had a Bluetooth headset on and I dint notice... sigh

y u no say hi to my face, China!? ლ(ಠ益ಠლ

A few minutes ago I was on the street and some kids said "english" in a silly way and I turned around and waved and they started laughing and wouldn't even look at me, I guess it's kind of fun for them. It's not only children though, earlier this morning a couple xiao huozi in their twenties said hello, I turned around and said hello and they said hello again and then we just looked at each other for a while until i walked away. This is definitely a smaller town occurrence though, in beijing I never got hellos although right now I'm in a smaller city called yixing in jiangsu province. The strange thing i'm noticing here in yixing is when people say "China". I don't get it, I'll walk by someone and they'll just say "china" or sometimes even say it in chinese "zhong1guo2". I'm not sure the point they're trying to get across, makes me think about it for a while though.

Maybe it is because they learn English in a classroom with theater style seating where they speak to the back of the head of the person in front of them.

Maybe they are just afraid that if they spoke to you face-to-face you may answer and they would not know what to say beyond hello.