[lemming]

All the racial dimension aside, because I don't really feel qualified to comment on it, “So how do you spend your time?” is a much more interesting question than "What do you do for a living?". I particularly notice that in the States people really tend to identify with their jobs, something that as an outsider is often strange. I lived in Spain for a long time, and it wasn't uncommon to spend a lot of time with someone before having any more than the vaguest idea of what they do for a living, something that would be unthinkable in the US (at least in NYC and CA where I've spent most of my time there). As the OP notes, the answers that come from asking people about their time are likely to be more interesting because they're more likely to tell you about things they're passionate about, which is generally much more interesting than their job.