To Kiss or Not to Kiss？That Is the Question
1. Never shall I forget the first time I met my ex-boyfriend's mother – a 50 year old English lady with a well-kept perm, giving me a suspicious stare over the rim of her glasses. I briskly stepped out with my hand outstretched and ready to give her my Dutch three kisses – right, left, right. However, after my first kiss I noticed a considerable change in her body language – as I was nearing her enthusiastically, she all of a sudden froze, and I held a limp woman in my arms基督教歌曲大全小敏. Embarrassed, I stopped half-way through, my second kiss trailing in the air, trying to make up for the awkward situation痒的歌词 by grasping her hand even more firmly, while trying to smile a reassuring smile that ended up not being seen by her averting eyes.周深的歌曲全部歌曲
2. In sharp contrast with this situation is the moment I met my husband's mother, years later – a small, cheerful and expressive Colombian woman. As I approached her with my outstretched hand, ready to shake hers firmly and plant three kisses on her cheeks, she swept me off my feet, embraced me passionately, held my face between her hands and 剪刀妹pla
ced a long lingering kiss on each cheek, while murmuring phrases I could not understand.演员吕中
3. Why does an English woman freeze when a Dutch woman tries to kiss her? Why does a Dutch woman feel intimidated by a Colombian lady's passion? Why does the kiss have different meanings in different cultures? Kissing is one of the most intimate forms of communication – and communication, as Hall argues "constitutes the core of culture and indeed of life." (Hall 1966: 1) Whereas kissing prehistorically might have originated in a mother feeding her infant by transferring chewed food from mouth to mouth, nowadays, it is a form of communication that is acknowledged in most cultures, in one form or another. However, the context in which we kiss may differ: we can kiss because we love, because we respect, because we greet or say farewell, or because we comfort. Knowing when to kiss or when not to kiss – that's the question.
4. Using kissing as a form of saying hello might be widely accepted in certain cultures but shivered upon in others. Hence I am sure most of us have been in situations where their
kisses embarrassingly hovered in mid-air, or even worse, ended in someone's most intimate parts of the neck – or vice versa, where their “hello's” and formally outstretched hands were surprisingly met by passionate kisses. In a contemporary world where the meeting of people transcends nationalities, a certain “kissing etiquette” could be useful – but, we have to ask ourselves, how accurate can such etiquette be?
5. There are certain cultures in which any type of physical contact in public is mostly frowned upon – hence kissing as a form of greeting someone is considered a taboo. Examples are countries like China or Japan. On the contrary, we'll find that in most western European cultures, kissing is so much accepted that it even has become a formality – examples are the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and of course France. The number of kisses, however, might differ across countries and depend on certain additional conditions like gender, age, relationship and context. In countries like the US or Australia, hugging might be more customary than kissing, however, a peck on the cheek is certainly not uncommon in Australia. Then there are Muslim cultures in which it is appropriate to kiss only within your gender – physical contact between males and female
s is not widely accepted. Lastly, there is a certain ambiguous category to which the English belong – known for being reserved, they shy away from kissing, however it has happened to me more often than not that I was kissed by an English person without having 好人一生平安made previous acquaintance.
6. Hence, generalizations are there to be disputed. A culture averse to any form of physical contact in public – and hence to kissing – is the Chinese, as mentioned above. However, in 2004, a supermarket with the fascinating name “Everybody is Happy” in the Chinese municipality of Tianjin called out a kissing contest on Valentine's Day. This caused huge controversies between their more conservative, older customers and the younger ones – however, the kissing contest took place with great success. In Japan, the so-called western or Christian wedding ceremony has more and more commonly replaced the traditional Japanese wedding – and is thus sealed with a wedding kiss. However, in most of the cases, the kiss is planted on the cheek rather than on the lips.
7. In the Netherlands, as part of the “inburgerings-examen” or integration test for future m
igrants into the country, a shot is shown of two gay men kissing. The exam includes a question on how to behave when witnessing two gay men kiss in a public place – next to questions on the Dutch colonial history, the nationality of the crown princess and public transport. This question has been met by a lot of protest among certain Arabic and Asian cultures, where even though kissing in public might be accepted by now, homosexual kissing is a taboo. So here, interestingly, the act of kissing is used as a tool to send out a certain message to future immigrants.