You lean in for a kiss on the cheek, while they go to grab your hand, or even, in some places, to give you a hug. When you're in an unfamiliar country, greeting someone appropriately can be very confusing and even embarrassing.

Let’s review the spectrum of ways to greet people, shall we? From least familiar to most familiar, the spectrum tends to look like this: eye contact, eye contact with a smile, the former two with a wave, all of the aforementioned with a “hi,” a handshake, a hug, and (the most familiar of them all) a kiss on each cheek. Wait a second. Does it go hug then kisses on the cheeks, or is it the other way around? Which one is the proper etiquette? Why doesn’t greeting people come with an instruction manual when you enter a new country?!

Nearly every pocket of the planet has its own unwritten, unspoken code about what’s appropriate when greeting others. Be it your first encounter with that person or be it your own mother, there are procedures to be followed.

For those who aren’t up-to-speed with their foreign greeting etiquette, we’ll review a little bit to minimize the potential for awkward, stressful, and confusing chance encounters with others.

In European countries like France, Spain, and Holland (to name a few), it’s the norm to kiss each cheek once—and, in Holland, it’s always the right cheek first. This is regardless of whether you’ve met before or not. It seems the more familiar you get, the sloppier the kisses tend to become. In some parts of the world, a hug can be more personal than giving kisses on the cheek.

Brits try to get in on the getting-close action and sneak in a single kiss on the cheek, but only when you’ve gotten to know one another well enough. In some South American countries, it’s the norm to give a single kiss on one cheek when greeting someone new, regardless of if you’ve met before or not.

In Turkey, men who are close friends typically walk linking arms, and touch cheek to cheek when they greet, but only touch, never kiss. And in conservative North America, a kiss on the cheek expresses physical attraction, and nothing more than a hug should be given when meeting a stranger—at most. Typically a handshake or simply a wave and a smile are given when initially meeting. This would seem to be the closest many will ever get to finding an instruction manual when greeting.

If you’re not sure how to greet others when finding yourself in new surroundings and if you’re not sure how close is too close, take a minute to watch what others are doing around you before you act because you don’t want to accidentally step on someone’s toes when you go to kiss them on the cheek.

By sheena

Faire la bise, serrer la main, donner l'accolade ? Comment se comporter lorsqu'on nous présente quelqu'un à l'étranger ? Un vrai casse-tête... (A écouter en V.O. (cliquez sur le fichier MP3) à la fin de l'article. A noter également qu’en passant votre souris sur les mots en italique, ces derniers apparaissent traduits en surimpression.

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