Every country and culture has it’s own way of greeting, whether it’s kissing or hand-shaking or bowing. How and who you greet is nearly always culturally prescribed. If you’re lucky there’s one standard greeting for all situations and contexts. If you’ve picked a culture that has multiple greetings for various situations and hierarchies, then look forward to a number of awkward moments before getting it all right.
Luxembourg and Brussels are two cities with a massive expat population, which complicates things even more. Suddenly you’re not only having to figure out what the locals do, but also what the expats do!
In Luxembourg, the norm is three kisses, starting on with the right cheek. In Belgium, it’s one kiss, in theory much less time-consuming, but you need to greet everyone in the room when you arrive or leave which at a party can get a bit tiring.
There are a lot of French people who travel to work in Luxembourg each day. In France two kisses are normal. In Britain, kissing is only common for certain classes of people, and only really between women or between a man and a women, but never ever between men. Which seems to be the same for Luxembourg but in Belgium kissing between men was the norm.
Then throw in some Americans with their love of hugging (even strangers) and a big handful of Brits, the majority of whom like to keep a safe distance from each other, and it gets truly complicated!
My friend Rosie, wrote about this on her blog a few weeks back and it made me laugh out loud. Here’s how she put it…
“Imagine two people in Luxembourg about to greet each other, Person A and Person B. Here are some factors to consider:
- Where A is from
- Where B is from
- If A already knows where B is from, because someone else told person A ahead of time, but person B doesn’t know that. Or vice versa.
- How well they know each other, or if this is the first introduction, or anything in between.
- If A and B are a male-male, female-female, or male-female
- How generally friendly or comfortable with invasions of personal space either A or B are.
- Who initiates the greeting and the exact timing of the response (I’ll expand on that in a second).
- Whether it’s hi or goodbye
- Remembering what on Earth the two of you did the last time.”
Complicated, much?! (You can read the rest of her post here). The upside of all this of course is that the confusion of greetings is only due to the very multi-cultural environment here in Luxembourg, which in most other ways is a complete joy to be a part of. So if the price of that is a few awkward near-mouth-to-mouth-kisses with your husband’s bosses wife? Well, I’ll take it…
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This post is part of my 31 days to embrace expat life. I’m writing every day through October on this topic (I’m three days behind!). Click on the button to see all the posts so far…
Previous post: Expat Children.
Air kiss image via Stuff rich people love
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Heehee, this post takes me back to my first trip to Spain! I was a very shy 17 year-old, and I would blush “shrimp red”, as the Spaniards said, no matter who I kissed/was kissed by, whether it was a little old granny or my tall, dark and handsome future husband.
They do two kisses here when you arrive and when you leave, and even if there are two dozen people of whom you konw three, you make the rounds and kiss everyone. I got over my embarrassment by thinking of it as a kind of ice-breaker – if I can kiss these people, surely I can talk to them…
Here’s the low-down for Spain:
Woman-woman: always two kisses.
Man-woman: always two kisses.
Man-man: they might give two kisses, but close male friends/family are more likely to do the “handshake-backslap-hug” routine, and strangers might just shake hands.
The kissing, however, does not apply in all social situations. People I’ve learned not to kiss include:
-The headmaster of the school that’s hosting your exchange (oops)
-Healthcare providers
-The HR person who interviews you for a job (although you may kiss your boss once you’ve been hired and are a part of the work social scene)
-Bus drivers (but sometimes you may feel like hugging them when they help you to not be lost anymore)
Thanks for the great series!
“if I can kiss these people, surely I can talk to them…” This made me laugh out loud
As a Brit living in Munich but formerly in Zurich, I have to remember that it is two kisses in Bavaria but three in Zurich. I have had a couple of embarrassing situations where I have stopped at two and the other person has gone for a third and we’ve nearly locked lips!!! I have to say out loud ‘where am I, oh, Zurich its three times’. It is the only way I can remember the social custom!!
Yes that extra kiss can be a dangerous one. So many near-misses and bumped heads due to that sneaky extra kiss…!
This is a very interesting one, and I’m often wanting to give a kiss too many! In Switzerland it’s 3 and in Austria and Germany it’s two kisses. They also start on the right. Now, imagine being greeted and kissed by an Italian- the first time I did that, he started on the left and I on the right and we almost lip-locked. Not very exciting. I tend to try and step back and watch others first, before greeting so I know what is expected of me.
And what about those people you just don’t want to kiss? I haven’t found out yet how to get out of that, because many ignore the offered hand for a shake and rush in for those kisses!
Eek, yes, it can be way too close for comfort some times! There are certain people I’d just rather avoid kissing. My best approach yet is to somehow place some other object between us – car, furniture, husband if necessary and then do the “sadly-we’re-too-far-too-kiss” shrug and wave across it all.
Yep, here it is two kisses. Though when you just meet someone (or in professional situations), it is a handshake. Men shake hands with men, but cheek-kiss women. Women cheek-kiss everyone. Exceot when you don’t. It is so complicated. And there is the very occasional person that does on three kisses, so there are little surprises every now and then. Plus, when you arrive or leave a party, you have to greet everyone, so it is super time-consuming. I tried to follow the lead of whoever I am greeting, but sometimes they don’t offer a clue by leaning in or by offering a hand, so I am left unsure. I know there I times when I should have cheek-kissed someone and I just waved (um…yeah, I do that sometimes when I don’t know what I am supposed to do. I figure they probably just think I am the foreigner who doesn’t know any better). Ah well. S says he finds it complicated too and he is sometimes surprised, and he is from here, so….
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