In the first of our two-part series on French greetings, we look at la bise, or kissing.
Faire la bise refers to the act of kissing someone on both cheeks, generally twice but sometimes four times and, more rarely, three times.
The term ‘kiss on the cheek’ is deceptive because it is exactly what you don’t do: two people can’t kiss each other on the cheeks at the same time without dislocating their jaws. You have to put your cheeks side by side in brief contact and make a kissing sound out of the opposite side of your mouth. When changing from one side to the other, you have to keep your distance or you will bump noses. If you can, it is a good idea to practice on a close acquaintance before having a go on a real French person who knows how it should be done.
It is usually fairly easy to decide who to do la bise to: in a typical social encounter the men will do la bise to the women while the women will do it to everyone within reach whether man, woman, or child. At longer social events there will be kissing of cheeks on arrival and on departure. But there may be times when you can’t decide whether la bise is required in a given set of circumstances. It’s all a matter of how well you know the person you are greeting, or even of how well you think you are going to end up knowing them.
From A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi by Charles Timoney, Penguin, £8.99
Read more in the December issue of Living Abroad magazine
