Cultural Diversity in Greeting
From a western point of view, in attempting to understand and embrace the qualities and traditions of worth from other cultures, there are certain limitations.
Western students are at present inclined to embrace many of the philosophies and ideologies attributed to Hindu and Buddhist faiths. Many are enriched by their extended knowledge and understanding that will hopefully be expressed and directed towards striving for excellence in their lives, their actions and their courteous behaviour.
But if we are to be sincere in our motivation and respectful in our application of any tradition of another culture we must also be accurate in understanding its purpose and meaning, yet remaining true to our own.
Many of the teachings attendant to eastern customs, originate in the integral moral and ethical values of human civilization that remain the core value in any fine culture. Sadly, the general decline in attention to these core values and even a resistance to them, offers little encouragement to those who wish for better. With neglect of cultural refinement, boorish, crude and even violent behaviour flourish to the detriment of individuals and society in general.
Regarding natural courtesies, it is an agreeable custom to greet others with a respectful gesture. In western countries we offer a warm handshake by which we express our openness and also have opportunity to measure our impressions and opinion of another’s psyche.
The eastern custom calls for a gesture of sincerity by greeting another by placing the palms of his or her own hands together with an accompanying subtle head gesture. This code is designed to help maintain personal integrity and avoid casual physical contact.
Whilst amongst westerners, the eastern person to adapt, must break his own code that offers no physical contact and most businessmen will adjust accordingly. We are all free to adopt the courtesies of our hosts in the common belief that ‘when in Rome, do as the Romans do’ and many from the west are comfortable in following the oriental custom as circumstances demand.
In this simple manner of greeting another socially, we have a perfect example of how differently different people can act and also of how awkward it can be to go against the grain of our cultural upbringing. But it is not always so easy to alter our emotional reactions and mental attitudes. We can only use our imagination to consider the adjustments of a person who is brought up to consider handholding an extremely intimate gesture when confronted with the enthusiastic physical cheek kisses of a French ‘hello’!
We anticipate that there will be many bridges to cross in blending human cultures of the world if, indeed, in the future we choose to strive for a ‘one world’ of perfect harmony and understanding between all peoples of the world. It is dubious, however, whether we would wish to create a sameness and discard the natural diversity of human expression.
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