The globalized culture of kissing hits Indonesia

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.