Kissing in Cherbourg (Normandie, France)

Another town I visited during my holidays in Normandie was Cherbourg, an important harbour in the Cotentin paeninsula. I went there to visit an interesting Fine Arts Museum and stayed there only a couple of hours, but this let me learn a little about the practice of the bise in Cherbourg. You could imagine it is similar to that in Bayeux, couldn't you? Well, you will be wrong. For what I have seen, the most spread number of cheek-kisses was four. I remember a pretty girl who kissed an elder man four times. I also saw people exchange two bises and others just one, but one kiss looked as the most unusual option.
In a small village in the internal part of Normandie, called L'Aigle (The Eagle in English), I saw people exchange three or four kisses, the latter being the most frequent.
In both cases, I couldn't observe many people who practised this gesture, but this can already provide clear evidence of how much the French kissing custom varies not only from region to region but, I would say especially, within the same region. That is why la bise is the most puzzling custom even for the French!

Kissing in Bayeux (Normandie, France)

I spent three weeks in Normandie (North-Western France) in 2001 and I could observe the practice of the bise (social cheek-kissing) in three locations.
One of them was Bayeux, a nice town close to the village where we had rent a house, not far from the seaside of Omaha Beach. There, I didn't notice any great problem concerning the number of bises. From what I saw, the standard greeting are two kisses (starting from the right cheek, I think), although three are also possible. One Sunday, after going out of the church, I even saw two people exchange five kisses, which I haven't seen anywhere else so far. At least one of them must have been from the North of France, where I have read they exchange five bises.

Visitors of the blog

Hi!
I see from my Shinystat counter that this blog is being read (or at least viewed) all over the world, especially in the USA. So, I warmly invite all visitors, even if not Europeans, to leave a comment and to write about whether the kissing on the cheeks is practised in their country, if yes how, etc. Feel free to drop me a line!
And now, as promised, I will start the series of posts about the bise in the single French locations I've been to.

"La bise": the French custom of kissing on the cheeks

The French are famous for the custom of greeting people with kisses on the cheeks. This custom is called in French se faire la bise, which isn't translatable into other languages: literally, it means to do the peck (little kiss). I read somewhere (but I don't remember where) that the bise originated in the North-Western region of Bretagne and was first practised by people from the country, then it spread throughout France.
Be aware of this before going to France: the kissing on the cheeks is an institution in France. Whenever two people meet in informal circumstances, they are expected to exchange kisses, no matter if they are close friends or just acquaintances. Young people may kiss even upon the first meeting, especially if introduced by a mutual friend.
People always kiss to say hello, even every day, and often also to say good-bye. Women kiss everyone, men kiss women; men may kiss male friends or relatives, mostly in Southern France. The bise has almost replaced the verbal greeting. I've seen people kiss without saying bonjour ("good morning") or salut ("hello"). If you join a group, you must kiss everyone and here is the dilemma: how many kisses are to be exchanged? Well, there is no answer. The number can go from one to five (or more?) and varies from region to region but also from town to town, even within a town. In Bretagne, I noticed that people usually kissed twice or four times in one village, while in neighbouring villages the custom was only one kiss. A minor problem is: which cheek should be kissed first? It seems that in Northern France, people start kissing from the right cheek, while in Southern France they begin from the left cheek. However, this distinction is very simplified and it may not work very well. People also exchange one or more kisses during religious celebrations, when the priest says donnez-vous la paix ("exchange a sign of peace"). And, of course, the French kiss in the same other circumstances as other peoples kiss: to express wishes, feelings and so on. So, you see that it's very important not to forget this simple but problematic gesture.
In the coming posts, I will analyse the practice of the bise in many French locations where I have been, so that you can get a more precise idea about the complexity of this charming custom.

(This post was taken from my Virtual Tourist page about France, where the length is limited, so I may update it in the future.)

First days at university

I started a new university year on Monday 13th. The first days were dominated by kisses among friends who met after some time. Unfortunately, my few good friends stopped university after the three-year degree, while I have started a two-year "master" in translation, so I had the opportunity to kiss just a couple of girls, namely a friend whom I met at a Slovenian course but she's not of my year, and a friend I met at the summer school in Bovec last year. The first girl didn't mean to kiss me, so I did the first move because she's very nice to me (she always says hello and we sometimes chat a little). On the contrary, the second girl offered her cheek.
It's on such circumstances that I regret that we Italians aren't so kissy-like as other peoples. Anyway, I'm getting to know some girls I only knew by sight or little more. So, I hope I'll get some more kisses before the Christmas holidays.
Yesterday, I went eating a pizza with some friends of my political party. There was only one girl among them. I had already met her, but maybe she didn't remember me well, so we shook hands. I would have preferred to kiss her (she was pretty), but since I am shy, I accepted the handshake. Oh, well, it will be for another time...

Kissing identity card of ITALY

I will start with my country a series of "kissing identity cards", that is summaries about the practice of the cheek kissing in European countries.

Who kisses who (genders):
women kiss women, men kiss women, men may kiss men (relatives or close friends)
Number of kisses: 2 (standard) or 3
Starting from: the left cheek (your right)
Whom to kiss:
- relatives
- friends
- acquaintances (usually not upon first meeting)
DO kiss:
- upon meeting relatives (even every day, depends on people)
- upon meeting or leaving friends you haven't met or won't meet for a long time
- to express congratulations (e.g. marriage) or wishes (e.g. Christmas, birthday)
- to thank someone you know (e.g. for a gift)
- to show affection (to relatives and close friends)
DO NOT kiss:
- upon meeting or leaving someone you see everyday (except relatives)
- upon meeting someone for the first time
- in formal situations

More about Italy (with my personal experience)

I would like to write again about kissing in Italy. I am a little afraid that someone may have got from my previous post the idea that Italians rarely kiss on the cheeks. No, that's false. For example, if you meet a close relative, you may kiss every day, even if much depends on the person. My mother's mum kiss me everytime we meet, while my father's parents are more reserved and don't kiss me much.
This has a reason: one day, when I was a child, I stopped accepting and giving cheek kisses. I couldn't even see two people kiss. This might have been a reaction against two many kisses (you know, the affectionate noisy kisses that grannies and aunts give to children). Anyway, I went on until 14 years without kissing anybody. Then, I understood this would have been a problem in my life, so I started kissing people on the cheeks. Well, I don't kiss so many people because I am rather shy and don't know many girls (I have never found it easy to kiss male friends; I just kiss my father, grandfather and sometimes my uncles, but not that often), but I enjoy this gesture.
Back to my previous post, when I say that we don't kiss at first meeting, this is the rule: anyway that may happen, but mostly among young people, as cheek kissing is not very widespread among aged people. Personally, when I meet a girl for the first time, I shake her hand or simply say "hello, nice to meet you".
Another point about greeting in Italy is when we join a group of people. We usually don't kiss everybody, unless we are real friends or haven't met for a long time, and, if there are a lot of people, we just greet verbally (Ciao, "Hello", or Buongiorno, "Good morning"). In other countries, by contrast, you are seen as impolite if you don't greet each one of the people you meet (either by kissing or by shaking hands).
The "kissing on the cheeks" topic is far more complicated than one would think, isn't it?
Feel free to leave comments to my posts and to write about customs in your country (even outside Europe).

Kissing in Italy

Since I am Italian, I will start with a post about the kissing practice in my country.
Although Italians are a Latin people, our kissing habit is a little different from that of the French, Spaniards, Portuguese or other peoples. This is certainly due to the cultural fragmentation of Italy. We became a united state in 1861, but we have never been (and probably we will never be) a united nation, whereas France, Spain, Portugal have been a nation for some centuries, so all French people have a common background, which is not true in Italy. Having been dominated by other peoples until 150 years ago has prevented us from forming a national identity.
So, coming back to the cheek-kissing, we usually (or mostly) exchange two kisses, starting from the left cheek (so from our right) and moving to the right cheek. This is the standard kissing custom. However, in Northern Italy, where I live, it is becoming more and more usual to add a third kiss (back to the first cheek, not on the mouth!). This may be a French influence, but I'm not sure. I don't know if the third kiss is also spreading across Southern Italy, because I have never been there.
However, what makes us quite different from our Latin cousins is the frequency of this gesture.
If we meet a person every day, even if it is a friend or someone we like, we don't kiss every day, but only on some circumstances. Moreover, if we are first introduced to a mutual friend, kissing on the cheek is not the rule (although it can be done).
In Italy women kiss both women and men, men kiss women but they can also kiss other men if they are relatives or good friends (or gays, ok!). Another difference between us and other Latins: here it is not at all impolite or rude to shake a woman's hand, for example when meeting for the first time. A woman can also shake another woman's hand, also in informal context. Instead, in Spain or France a woman always must kiss both men and women and shaking hands is considered as cold (I'm always talking about informal context; of course, when doing business or at work women can shake hands in those countries, too).
Well, I think this can be all about Italy for now.

Why a blog about kissing on the cheeks?

I have become increasingly interested in the social act of kissing on the cheeks during my several summer holidays in France. France is one of the European countries where this gesture is most spread, but what makes it different from other European states is that the number of kisses changes from region to region and even from village to village.
So, I started studying this custom in the 1990s and, since then, I've kept looking at its practice in the European countries I have visited.
The main problem that justifies such a blog is that not all European peoples practise the cheek kissing the same way. Some exchange one kiss, some two kisses, some other three or more kisses. Furthermore, in some countries people kiss everytime they meet, whereas in others people never or rarely kiss.
This blog can be considered as the evolution of the Yahoo! group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kissing-cheeks-europe/, which has turned rather inactive lately. I will also post here what I have previously written in this discussion group or elsewhere.
I hope this blog will prove useful both to European visitors (to understand another element that adds on enriching our cultural diversity) and to non-European people (to learn about this custom which is unknown to some cultures).
Michele