正文
新來的jennytomato MM一篇帶著French kiss的巴黎在風情壇掀起千層浪。俺這朵浪花不肯退岸，猛古狗了一通見麵打招呼的各種方式，本想攙和自己體會提綱契領一下。一看不得了，千般變化萬種風情呀，等俺實在閑得無聊時再說吧。先轉過來一篇連跟貼，原來歐洲人自己都搞不清，怎怪俺表錯情。還是冬夢MM的招數高——您先來。Happy Kissing ：）
December 14, 2004
French kissing
A group of young French teenagers caught my attention in the metro yesterday. There was something familiar about the way the girls were talking in louder than necessary voices, laughing too much and sneaking covert glances at a group of boys standing nearby. This sight transported me back two decades, and I saw my eleven year old self catching the school bus. As I attended a girls' grammar school, the only exposure my friends and I had to opposite sex was on daily journeys to and from school. Our aim was to occupy the front seat on the top deck, where we took centre stage and 'performed', hopeful that we might catch the eye of the heartthrob of the moment.
Back to the present day and our French teenagers. Their flirtatious behaviour was identical to any English teen's, except for one important detail. As each one neared their metro stop, the conversation came to a seemingly pre-agreed momentary halt whilst each and every fellow schoolmate was given la bise. Imagine how potentially loaded with information that innocent gesture could be. You could choose to kiss the air, accidentally-on-purpose brush a cheek with your lips, or execute proper lip smacking pecks of varying durations. As you change from one side to the other, you could conceivably brush the other person's lips. Quite frankly, highly strung as I was at that age I think I would have fainted at such intimate contact.
La bise is second nature to the French. For a foreigner like myself it is a minefield.
First of all, there is the matter of how many kisses you are supposed to bestow. In Paris the norm seems to be two. In certain Parisian suburbs however you are expected to give four (which must be time consuming when you have to take your leave of a party of ten people). In some regions three is the customary number. Many a time I have proffered my cheeks twice, only to find that I was expected to go two full rounds.
The other 'unknown' which makes things awkward is that I have never understood which side I am supposed to start with. Whichever I choose seems to be instinctively wrong: causing an embarrassed direction change in mid-air to correct the trajectory. I'm sure if I asked Mr Frog which side to start on he would say that there is no right or wrong answer. It probably comes under the heading of innate French knowledge which I will never by privy to, however many years I spend in France.
How does one know in which situations an 'I work in fashion daahling' air-kiss is expected, or when it is appropriate to give an enthusiastic peck on one/more cheeks? I invariably air kiss (English reserve: I prefer to give too little rather than too much) and when the other person plants a proper kiss on my cheek and I feel like I've insulted them by not reciprocating.
Last dilemma: to kiss or not to kiss? The other evening I noticed Tadpole's playmate's mum giving our shared nanny a kiss when she greeted her. That would never feel natural to me. Nanny gets la bise on two special occasions only: her birthday and at New Year (when it is compulsory to kiss everyone).
The plot thickens: at some point during my prolonged absence from the UK, continental-style cheek kissing was adopted by my peers. I don't know if it's the circles I move in or a more generalised phenomenon. So now I am faced with a similar dilemma when I greet my long-lost English friends. What is expected: a shy, awkward English 'hello' with no physical contact whatsoever, a kiss on one cheek and an affectionate squeeze, an air kiss on both sides?
I admit defeat: not only I will almost certainly never attain the level of Frenchness necessary to get this instinctively right, but to add insult to injury I'm now increasingly out of step with practices in my home country.
It seems I'll just have to settle for being considered rude or gauche on both sides of the Channel...
Posted by petite anglaise at December 14, 2004 11:10 PM
Comments
This is a source of medium to great distress for me. I finally learned to shake people's hands, which is done a lot here in Austria, only to have air-kissing become popular. Usually I still shake men's hands; with women half the time I kiss them on the cheek, or ear maybe, depending on how frantic I am, and wonder whether that was right; half the time I start on the wrong side and it's either a head-butt or a big kiss on the lips as their husband looks on.
Posted by: mig at December 15, 2004 09:16 AM
In Brazil men don't kiss each other when they meet, and the number of kisses also depends on the region, but it always starts on the same side - which I can't remember now. All I can say is that in Italy the kisses begin from the opposite side, and that men kiss each other as a greeting, which I still haven't got used to.
Posted by: leticia at December 15, 2004 07:52 PM
In Oman the most distinctive thing is not the kissing* , it's the rapid fire greeting where about nineteen questions and answers get exchanged all over the top of each other. Men go on the most.
If someone new enters a gathering, everyone stands and gets greeted (same sex only, of course). This can take... quite a while.
* men: either shake hands lightly and reverently with other hand on wrist then over heart, or touch noses and squeak/kissy noise plus handshake and/or hug. women: cheek-kiss six times or more starting from left(?), plus hug -- all dependant on age and relative social status.
Posted by: flerdle at December 16, 2004 11:20 AM
In Sweden, it's a mish-mash as far as I can tell. In my crowd, goodbyes include a hug and a single kiss on the cheek, mostly. But what is universal is the greeting for when you meet someone the first time: "hej" with a handshake and your first name, short and brisk.
Posted by: francis s. at December 16, 2004 03:48 PM
Funny post.
As a French living in the US, every time I go back to france (once every other year), I NEVER know what to do, which side, how to, who to kiss...
I guess it always comes back after a couple weeks, but some people find it pretty humourous!!
I think it's hard because there is also a generation differences- For example, before you would of never kissed your friend's parents, now it's customary.
Posted by: Magabe at December 16, 2004 06:01 PM
This can be problematic in the former Yugoslavia as well, where it's fraught with danger. Croats generally kiss twice, while Serbs almost always kiss three times. Since the two sides have spent the post-war years trumping up the differences between themselves, you run the risk of inflaming nationalist sentiments by kissing too little or too much...
Posted by: Michael M. at December 17, 2004 01:21 PM
Here in Geneva, on the border between Switzerland and France, it's three kisses, always starting with the left. A French friend tells me she has identified the border between the Swiss 3-kiss convention and the French Haut Savoie 2-kiss convention in a field several kilometers outside Annemasse.
Posted by: Steve R at December 20, 2004 07:53 PM
Just found this weblog... how delightful! I'm an American living in Norway for the past 5 years and just had to chime in:
I can't get used to the fact that here you're expect to say "thank you for the last time" the first time after meeting some again after a social event, especially if they've hosted the event... no matter how long it's been since that event. I can _never_ seem to remember that and feel rather rude when my husband (who is Norwegian and usually does) remembers. I've begun to suspect it'll never come automatically.
Posted by: Theresa at December 30, 2004 06:22 PM
原文出處：http://lostintransit.org/archives/001048.html
December 14, 2004
French kissing
A group of young French teenagers caught my attention in the metro yesterday. There was something familiar about the way the girls were talking in louder than necessary voices, laughing too much and sneaking covert glances at a group of boys standing nearby. This sight transported me back two decades, and I saw my eleven year old self catching the school bus. As I attended a girls' grammar school, the only exposure my friends and I had to opposite sex was on daily journeys to and from school. Our aim was to occupy the front seat on the top deck, where we took centre stage and 'performed', hopeful that we might catch the eye of the heartthrob of the moment.
Back to the present day and our French teenagers. Their flirtatious behaviour was identical to any English teen's, except for one important detail. As each one neared their metro stop, the conversation came to a seemingly pre-agreed momentary halt whilst each and every fellow schoolmate was given la bise. Imagine how potentially loaded with information that innocent gesture could be. You could choose to kiss the air, accidentally-on-purpose brush a cheek with your lips, or execute proper lip smacking pecks of varying durations. As you change from one side to the other, you could conceivably brush the other person's lips. Quite frankly, highly strung as I was at that age I think I would have fainted at such intimate contact.
La bise is second nature to the French. For a foreigner like myself it is a minefield.
First of all, there is the matter of how many kisses you are supposed to bestow. In Paris the norm seems to be two. In certain Parisian suburbs however you are expected to give four (which must be time consuming when you have to take your leave of a party of ten people). In some regions three is the customary number. Many a time I have proffered my cheeks twice, only to find that I was expected to go two full rounds.
The other 'unknown' which makes things awkward is that I have never understood which side I am supposed to start with. Whichever I choose seems to be instinctively wrong: causing an embarrassed direction change in mid-air to correct the trajectory. I'm sure if I asked Mr Frog which side to start on he would say that there is no right or wrong answer. It probably comes under the heading of innate French knowledge which I will never by privy to, however many years I spend in France.
How does one know in which situations an 'I work in fashion daahling' air-kiss is expected, or when it is appropriate to give an enthusiastic peck on one/more cheeks? I invariably air kiss (English reserve: I prefer to give too little rather than too much) and when the other person plants a proper kiss on my cheek and I feel like I've insulted them by not reciprocating.
Last dilemma: to kiss or not to kiss? The other evening I noticed Tadpole's playmate's mum giving our shared nanny a kiss when she greeted her. That would never feel natural to me. Nanny gets la bise on two special occasions only: her birthday and at New Year (when it is compulsory to kiss everyone).
The plot thickens: at some point during my prolonged absence from the UK, continental-style cheek kissing was adopted by my peers. I don't know if it's the circles I move in or a more generalised phenomenon. So now I am faced with a similar dilemma when I greet my long-lost English friends. What is expected: a shy, awkward English 'hello' with no physical contact whatsoever, a kiss on one cheek and an affectionate squeeze, an air kiss on both sides?
I admit defeat: not only I will almost certainly never attain the level of Frenchness necessary to get this instinctively right, but to add insult to injury I'm now increasingly out of step with practices in my home country.
It seems I'll just have to settle for being considered rude or gauche on both sides of the Channel...
Posted by petite anglaise at December 14, 2004 11:10 PM
Comments
This is a source of medium to great distress for me. I finally learned to shake people's hands, which is done a lot here in Austria, only to have air-kissing become popular. Usually I still shake men's hands; with women half the time I kiss them on the cheek, or ear maybe, depending on how frantic I am, and wonder whether that was right; half the time I start on the wrong side and it's either a head-butt or a big kiss on the lips as their husband looks on.
Posted by: mig at December 15, 2004 09:16 AM
In Brazil men don't kiss each other when they meet, and the number of kisses also depends on the region, but it always starts on the same side - which I can't remember now. All I can say is that in Italy the kisses begin from the opposite side, and that men kiss each other as a greeting, which I still haven't got used to.
Posted by: leticia at December 15, 2004 07:52 PM
In Oman the most distinctive thing is not the kissing* , it's the rapid fire greeting where about nineteen questions and answers get exchanged all over the top of each other. Men go on the most.
If someone new enters a gathering, everyone stands and gets greeted (same sex only, of course). This can take... quite a while.
* men: either shake hands lightly and reverently with other hand on wrist then over heart, or touch noses and squeak/kissy noise plus handshake and/or hug. women: cheek-kiss six times or more starting from left(?), plus hug -- all dependant on age and relative social status.
Posted by: flerdle at December 16, 2004 11:20 AM
In Sweden, it's a mish-mash as far as I can tell. In my crowd, goodbyes include a hug and a single kiss on the cheek, mostly. But what is universal is the greeting for when you meet someone the first time: "hej" with a handshake and your first name, short and brisk.
Posted by: francis s. at December 16, 2004 03:48 PM
Funny post.
As a French living in the US, every time I go back to france (once every other year), I NEVER know what to do, which side, how to, who to kiss...
I guess it always comes back after a couple weeks, but some people find it pretty humourous!!
I think it's hard because there is also a generation differences- For example, before you would of never kissed your friend's parents, now it's customary.
Posted by: Magabe at December 16, 2004 06:01 PM
This can be problematic in the former Yugoslavia as well, where it's fraught with danger. Croats generally kiss twice, while Serbs almost always kiss three times. Since the two sides have spent the post-war years trumping up the differences between themselves, you run the risk of inflaming nationalist sentiments by kissing too little or too much...
Posted by: Michael M. at December 17, 2004 01:21 PM
Here in Geneva, on the border between Switzerland and France, it's three kisses, always starting with the left. A French friend tells me she has identified the border between the Swiss 3-kiss convention and the French Haut Savoie 2-kiss convention in a field several kilometers outside Annemasse.
Posted by: Steve R at December 20, 2004 07:53 PM
Just found this weblog... how delightful! I'm an American living in Norway for the past 5 years and just had to chime in:
I can't get used to the fact that here you're expect to say "thank you for the last time" the first time after meeting some again after a social event, especially if they've hosted the event... no matter how long it's been since that event. I can _never_ seem to remember that and feel rather rude when my husband (who is Norwegian and usually does) remembers. I've begun to suspect it'll never come automatically.
Posted by: Theresa at December 30, 2004 06:22 PM
原文出處：http://lostintransit.org/archives/001048.html
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