In Japan, we bow to each other when we meet, or just say "Kon-nichi-wa (Hello)". We usually don't have body contact when greeting. It doesn't matter how close your relationship is. Even between family members, we rarely have body contact.
We know that people from other cultures greet with a kiss, a hug or a handshake, but most of us have no experience with it.
This is a story of a Japanese guy who came to Canada and struggled with what he should do in meeting and learnt how to deal with these situations, in other words, the story of my life.
When I first came to Canada, I met my wife's friend from Columbia. I kinda knew that those from Spanish-speaking countries were cheerful and passionate (I have to admit it was a bias) so I thought her friend came to me and gave me a kiss, or a hug. But how many kisses? Or how should I hug him? Who starts first??? I didn't know what to do. Before my turn, I saw he kissed on her cheek (I don't remember how many times because I was too nervous at the moment), so I waited for him giving me a kiss. But instead of kissing on my cheek, he hugged me so that my cheek flied in the air.
My second experience was in meeting with my wife's girl friend from Victoria, B.C. I was just going to say "Hi. Nice to meet you" because I thought I was not supposed to touch women's body.
But the truth is stranger than the fiction.
She came close to me and gave me a big hug! In fact, she was a cute girl. Well, it didn't matter whether she was cute or not. I was totally confused. Is this common in men and women meeting? Is this what we see every day? Is this Canada???
At that moment, I was truly completely in confusion so that my arms, which had nowhere to go, flied into the air.
What happens twice will happen three times.
When I moved to Guelph, I had another experience which made me re-acknowledge how difficult greeting was.
It occured between a friend of my wife who is from France and me. I am not such a fool as to make the same mistake. But, apparently I haven't learnt my lesson.
This time, I met him with caution because he was from France. To me, French people are elegant, well-dressed, like Parisien and Parisienne, so their greeting style was supposed to be elegant. Stereotype again.
I set up a hypothesis and a strategy about the meeting with him, which was like this; my experiences suggested that people don't give a kiss or a cheek in men and men meeting so he also doesn't give them to me. And in Europe, they usually give a big hug as greeting so that he probably will give a exellent, established hug to me. And if he doesn't give a hug, that's fine. I'm going to be able to follow his moving. That was my stupid, groundless hypothesis.
You may already know the result. Our greeting was very funny and all mixed up.
When I met him, I opened my arms to take his hug. That was the first and the last, and crucial mistake of my action. He, on the other hand, was going to give a handshake, but after seeing my opening arms, he followed my action and opened his arms. But at that moment, I tried to adjust my movement and shake his hand. Then he again tried to hand-shake, but it was too late! I tried to hug at the same time. If we'd had an audience, they must have thrown money at us.
This is my story, a story which tells you some lessons; Don't pretend to know. Stereotype is totally useless. And know each other, especially with people from different cultures.
In next post, I'll introduce you "greetings around the world" by a movie. Stay tuned with our blog!
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