Cross-kissing, face slapping, genital grabbing... and other weird greetings from around the world
TWO kisses is standard in Paris, but it’s three or four in Provence, four in the Loire Valley and up to five in Corsica. Spain likes two kisses, as does Italy. Belgium, however, prefers three. Colombia settles for a moderate one; Brazil is a bit more effusive at two. Russia kisses two or three times, followed by a hug. In Afghanistan, it’s eight. In Congo and Egypt, people kiss on the forehead.
In “One Kiss or Two?: The Art and Science of Saying Hello” (Overlook Press), out now, Andy Scott explores the unbearable awkwardness of greeting people around the world. Scott, a Brit who identifies as a single-kisser, notes that one of the most unbearable greetings is the “cross-kiss” — when each person goes for the other cheek and nearly smooch.
“Apprehension about saying hello has become so widespread that it could be a social condition,” he writes.
In New Zealand, the Maori custom is the “hong,” a literal tête-à-tête in which two people press foreheads and noses together and breathe in. A Congolese meeting involves pressing each other’s temple three times with the index fingers. In Guam, they knock knuckles on foreheads. And in India, respect for elders is shown by touching their right foot.
But this is nothing compared to greetings of the past. In the 1850s anthropologist Franz Boas documented Eskimo face slappers. When a stranger entered a village, everyone would gather while the visitor and a local man slapped each other’s faces as hard as possible until one of them called it quits. Boas also reported on a “common” Greenland practice called “hook and crook” in which newcomers had to bare their torsos and arm wrestle a local on an animal skin, with the victor awarded the right to kill the loser.
Even weirder? An overly welcoming population in Papua New Guinea, where the chief required new arrivals to suckle on his wife’s breast.
And as recently as the 1950s, Scott writes, it wasn’t uncommon for an aboriginal tribe in Australia to say hello via genital grabbing. Aussie anthropologist M.J. Meggitt reported that men of the Walbiri, upon visiting each other, would place their penises in their host’s hands. “To refuse a penis,” Scott writes matter of factly, “was a sign of hostility.”
It’s no wonder that, here in America, we’ve settled upon a quick handshake as our greeting of choice.