I was asked what my hobbies are during an interview once and it made me believe they were just looking for a personality hire or a pretty face.
Umm .. pretty standard & generally lame line of questioning at many companies/countries. Sounds like you were offended or surprised by it?
The mirror side of this is when almost all the intern applications/cover letters we used to receive contained a paragraph about the hobbies of the applicant (all domain-irrelevant). I find that weird but I guess it is sort of common nowadays?