The problem of kissing
When you see this post, I am sure you are thinking, “Julie who?” I admit that over the last few weeks I have not been a very conscientious blogger. I have been snared in business and personal trips, spending my time on airplanes, in the car and in meetings, with neither time nor brain cells for blogging.
But there is a matter that I have wanted to blog about for sometime–kissing. I refer, of course, to kissing as a way of greeting business acquaintances. This issue has confounded me ever since I started working at IABC and began to travel outside the United States. Over the years I had worked hard to perfect my handshake (firm but not too firm, not for too long, either) when I started meeting people who wanted to kiss my cheek, sometimes once, sometimes twice, sometimes three times. What to do? What to do?
It seems that I am not the only U.S. business traveler facing this conundrum. Two articles on business kissing appeared in the Wall Street Journal (I am embarassed to admit) almost a month ago. If you missed them, you should take a look:
online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120657753681167129…
s.wsj.net/article/SB120657979117167239.html
I found one thought particularly interesting. And surprising: “There is something so American about the firm control of a handshake–it’s about disarming one’s opponent and keeping him two feet at bay. Control is in our DNA.”
These articles remind me how much we all have to learn about other cultures and how much we have to do to understand our own.