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.
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2 comments:
Hello Michele,
I just read your post. In France
(I'm talking about east of france, it can be different in otehr regions of course) people kiss each other everyday, even at work... I find it time consuming caus' you can't start work untill you have kissed all your colleagues. At least, it's not the same in Germany. Is it the reason why germans are so efficient at work???
In unformal circunstance, when you meet somebody for the first time, you kiss on the cheeks too. I prefere to shake hands when I don't know the person, caus I find it rather personal...
Thanks for your interesting contribution Isabelle. I knew that the French are among the greatest cheek-kissers in Europe and in the world, but other readers maybe didn't know it.
Anyway, I will start a series of posts about cheek-kissing in all the French locations where I have seen it. There are many of them, so it will take time but, in the end, I will provide information about many places.
Italians don't kiss every day their work colleagues, but they aren't so efficient as Germans, so that's not the problem.
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