The globalized culture of kissing hits Indonesia

By Myra Sidharta

JAKARTA (JP): Globalization is forever changing traditions. I noticed this in my relations with an old lady, who I used to greet from a distance by putting my hands together. However, about two decades ago, she stepped towards me and gave me a big handshake. Another ten years later, the handshake too became too traditional for her and she gave me a big hug and kissed me fondly. Such a display of emotions was new to me and it took me some time to get used to the new kind of greeting.

In many traditional societies people seldom touch each other. Greeting is done from a distance. Even in present-day Japan people bow to each other ceremoniously, and outsiders sometimes wonder when it is going to end. In Asia, people generally hold up two hands, sometimes touching each other's hands briefly and then bring the right hand to the heart.

In Europe people used to greet with a handshake; a very cultured gentleman may hold up the lady's hand to give it a kiss. Women may courtesy to older ladies or to those of higher social rank.

I read somewhere that kissing between friends started to become fashionable in the early 1970s. It was a tradition from before the war, which was later frowned upon because it was not proper to show emotion in public. This theory was overruled by psychologists, who thought that showing emotions was healthy. So why not show your affection with a kiss?

Some people think that the traditional greeting is more hygienic, with less risk of transmitting diseases. It keeps us from suffering from handshakes that are too firm like that of my friend Rudy, who has a sadistic streak and loves to see you squirm. He aims especially at ladies wearing lots of rings on their fingers because the jewelry ads to their suffering when he squeezes them.

Kissing is now the rave in Indonesia. The trouble is, you do not kiss just anybody. There are two categories of people, one that you kiss when you meet and those that only get a handshake. The kiss-non-kiss relation can change suddenly. You meet a person, who you are sure had kissed you the other day, but does not kiss you today. This is because you can sometimes get thrown into a kiss relation. That happened to me when I went out with a friend. A person who met her kissed her and kissed me too, although I was not familiar with her. I met her again a few times and she still kissed me, but then it stopped. Maybe she forgot, but for me it may be different. I was afraid that she was angry with me.

Kissing can be used as a tool to show off. I know women who look around to see if people have noticed that she is being kissed by a VIP. Do people see that she is on kissing terms with Ibu so-and-so? Or if she is not sure, she can take out her mirror to inspect her own face and then pretend to be angry. "Ah, Bapak so-and-so has hugged me so firmly, now I have to redo my make up again," she says, while tugging at her blouse.

Tool

Kissing has its own language. Sometimes you get a very formal, distant and careful kiss, just a gesture as if you are being kissed, without even touching the cheeks. Sometimes you feel a very careful sweep on your right cheek and then the left. In America this is called the goldfish kiss, like the sweep of the tail of the goldfish. This kind of kiss is usually found among women, who don't want to ruin each other's make up. But sometimes you get a big and firm hug with or without a fond "mmm" to express each other's fondness and excitement to meet again. But gentlemen, beware. Sometimes a lady may leave a mark on your white shirt, only to make your wife suspicious.

Besides individual differences, there are also cultural differences. Heads of states from the Middle East kiss each other many, many times, depending on the depth of their relations. They may kiss each other six or seven times, something that would not be done between Bill Clinton and Helmut Kohl or Goh Chok Tong.

When a friend from Australia kissed me once, I had my second cheek ready, but no, she stopped. They only kiss once in Australia it seems. They are more "normal" in America and England and elsewhere, except... Holland. There you have to get ready three times, one for each cheek and a third one on one of them, your forehead or sometimes even your nose. My Dutch friend Rose once kissed an Indonesian lady, who was very surprised to have to be kissed three times.

"Do the Dutch kiss three times?" the Indonesian asked.

"Of course," I interrupted. "Red, white and blue, the colors of their flag."

Luckily they did not ask whether South Africans kiss five times because I would not know the answer. But Rose thanked me for the reminder.

"I now think in terms of flags when I kiss Indonesians. I stop at red and white," she told me recently.