The usual opening question in Ireland is "where are you from", and it's similarly awkward to answer for me (I'm not really from anywhere specific). If you're a foreigner in Ireland, the follow-up question is often "when are you going back?" - not intended in a xenophobic sense, but rather an assumption that one wouldn't want to leave one's home area for the rest of your life.

But I'm not sure there really are better ways to start a conversation that leads into talking about the people, rather than third-party topics. Probably a better answer to "what do you do", if you don't like the gambit, is to talk about your hobbies, or make something up that is only tangentially, allegorically or metaphorically about what you do.