We’ve been looking at how our sense of propriety, also known as “manners,” affects touch, language, food, and pretty much everything else we do. Now it’s time to make that famous list of pointers where we try to be intelligent and practical-minded.

1. I’ve often asked Americans to explain the rules of baseball to me. Everyone has always failed—the game is so deeply ingrained in their unconscious that they can’t verbalize the rules in a coherent and comprehensive order. Your sense of propriety is the same: it develops so early in life that you won’t be able to fully grasp it intellectually; it’s a nearly biological reflex by now. You take an awful lot of your tribe's customs for granted!
   
2. There are very few absolute propriety values, shared by all nations, cultures, and tribes. You should never assume a trait of yours is shared by all, or that it should be shared by all.
3. Looking at people from a culture different from yours, you might think that their manners are crazy, absurd, and unhealthy; and you might wonder why on Earth don’t they give it all up already. First, manners arise for reasons that at the outset may be quite logical. Second, those crazy people aren’t aware of their craziness, and in fact they don’t even consider themselves crazy—not in the least. Third, to them you’re just as crazy, absurd, and unhealthy. So… why don’t you give it all up already?
4. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.” In other words, adapt the mores of the culture you visit or the country you move to. In France, say “Bonjour, Madame,” every time you enter the bakery—every single time, always! Entering a Catholic church, uncover your head—always! Entering a synagogue, cover your head—always!
5. Clashes of manners are inevitable. An overly sensitive introvert meets a brash extravert. The introvert finds the loudmouth extremely rude and insensitive. But the extravert considers the introvert terribly stifling. Whose manners ought to change, to accommodate the needs of the other? Oftentimes there are no fair solutions.
6. Although we learn most of our manners intuitively, from a very early age, we can also learn new behaviors as grownups. It takes discipline, sensitiveness, and imagination. But, most of all, it takes a little “distance,” the capacity to leave your own certainties at the door.
7. When someone invites you to dinner, ask what’s on the menu before you say “yes.”

As we have seen already, our deeply held feelings of propriety include matters of language and matters of physical contact (for instance, in the form of handshakes, kisses, and hugs in social settings). Today I have one word for you: Food.

Much of what we eat and how we eat is socially determined, from a very early age. If you grow up in a culture where drinking milk is considered healthy, you may find it very hard to actually believe that milk is bad for you—as it is indeed, if not for you personally, then for a great number of adults who can't quite digest milk and yet continue to drink it. If you come from an Asian culture—Japan, for instance—you might find the idea of drinking milk absolutely revolting, and you might find it hard to imagine why on Earth some people would even think of drinking glasses and glasses of the stuff.

You see, the beliefs are so deeply held that we can't quite grasp them; we can't question them; and we can't imagine that other people might see things differently.

Our beliefs about food go well beyond nutritional matters; they include matters of hospitality, of times and spaces shared together. Someone might think like this: Everyone knows meat is an essential part of one's diet. Meat is good for me. I like meat. Meat is good for you. You should like meat. You must like meat. You have no choice but to like meat. I'm going to serve you meat, and if you don't eat it you're not only crazy but rude as well, since you're telling me that I'm wrong to like meat. Mangia, mangia!

In 1988 I went to Berlin for the first time, when the Wall still divided the city. I stayed with a friend of mine for a week, a Brazilian of German descent whom I knew from our shared adolescence in São Paulo. A friend of his—a purely German woman—heard about my presence in the city, and she decided to invite me for dinner. She didn't tell me this, but she wanted to show the distinguished guest something typical of her land. Off I went to her home. Ten or twelve people met: friends of hers, friends of my friends, the sort of incoherent assembly that comes together once and once only. The centerpiece of the meal was a German delicacy, which my hostess had prepared at great cost to her: Eisbein. That's pig's knee. Yes, the knee of a humongous pig, served whole on a plate, with bones, gristle, ligaments, tendons, fat, and a little bit of meat hidden behind the rest of the pig's anatomy.

Each guest was served an entire knee. Plus trimmings, of course—potatoes, cabbage, and whatnot.

I sat looking at it for a long time. It was impossible, this late in the game, for me to pretend I was a vegetarian, or a vegan, or a fish eater, or a monk from a strange sect that only ate pasta and ice cream. No. I had to eat the pig. It had been prepared especially for me, lovingly, by a dedicated German hostess who had gone out of her way to welcome me, a complete stranger, into the bosom of her home.

It wasn't dinner, it was vivisection. The pig looked so pig-like you could hear its squeals. You know what it said? It didn’t say, “Hello, Pedro, I'm delighted to be eaten by you. I'll do my best to go down your throat smoothly. Trust me, we're on the same side here.” No. It said, “I’m a pig, for goodness’ sake. I should be playing in mud right now. If you eat me you’re nothing but a blue-eyed devil.”

After the longest time I took a thin slice of meat from one side of the knee, removed the fat and other anatomic paraphernalia as well as I could, and ate a small forkful of it. One of the guests, a hearty Pole, turned his attention to me. “What's your problem?” he asked. “Are you sick, or something?” He had finished his Eisbein already, and on his plate there remained only the bones. He had consumed, devoured, masticated, and sucked off everything else in his sight.

It has been reported that, in certain Arab communities where hospitality is of the utmost importance, a host might KILL you if you refuse his or her hospitality. It was the awareness of this risk that led me to consume a few more forkfuls of that fateful pig.

Where I come from, the pigs are congressmen and senators. We don't eat them, man!

My friendly and dedicated correspondent, Lisa Marie (an Englishwoman who lives in France), is at it again. She wrote most thoughtfully about my recent posts on the subject of manners.

And you know what? The Brazilian in me disagrees with the Englishwoman in her, proving that I have no manners whatsoever! My retorts to Lisa Marie's remarks are inside the little boxes.

Hi Pedro,

I've been silently enjoying your posts on politeness. It's such a potentially hilarious subject. I think there are two kinds of behaviours which both fall into the category good manners but are very different. The first are all those culturally specific things that are often absurd (though not always) -- and have to be learned. The second category includes all those ways in which you attend to others to make them feel comfortable, e.g. listening to people until they've finished their desultory sentences, not staring over their shoulder in search of someone more interesting to talk to, not making other people aware of their lack of the first sort of good manners -- like the (probably apocryphal) hostess who drank her finger-bowl to save the blushes of a guest who had just drank his. It is easy to get the two categories muddled because some behaviours fall into both categories, for example -- remembering that guests arriving from far might want to rest and wash before they feel like being chatty and entertaining.

Er... I think both types of behavior you mention are similarly "cultural," speficic to certain groups and having to be learned. Listening to other peope until they finish their sentences, for instance: oftentimes in France and elsewhere, several people in a conversation might talk at the same time, without waiting for other people to finish what they're saying; and for people in such cultures, it's not considered rude in the least to converse in this manner. Indeed, I think ALL social behaviors are culture-specific; if that weren't the case, there would be SOME universal behaviors, and I can't think of even one that happens in all cultures, tribes, social settings, and so on.

I have problems in France with "Bonjour Madame X", to which, as you know the correct reply is "Bonjour Monsieur Y", (rather than plain unadorned "Bonjour" which I would find more natural)."Bonjour Monsieur Y" always makes me feel as if I've become trapped in a language primer and the words always come out of my mouth with audible (to me at any rate) inverted commas. I suppose any formulaic exchange learned later than childhood will always feel like an exercise in role-playing.

I think one can learn to absorb behaviors -- and make them become "natural" -- at any point in one's life, not in childhood alone; it's just that some things learned in childhood are more deeply rooted than others. Also, I somehow suspect that there are people in all groups who feel unhappy with the behaviors imposed by the traditions of the group. I'm sure there are Brazilians who don't like the cheek-kissing thingy, even though they grew up with it, and Frenchmen who are impatient with the "Bonjour, Madame" thingy.

Someone (Paul Theroux?) wrote 'The Japanese have so perfected good manners to the point that they have become almost indistinguishable from rudeness.'

Funny. And astute, I think. 

Your hypothetical American sins by ignorance (bad manners category 1). Your hypothetical baker is arrogant -- despising his customer as a barbarian just because he cannot imitate his (the baker's) local customs inferring thereby that he (the baker) would fare better if suddenly whisked accross the Atlantic -- but he only commits bad manners category 2 if the American becomes aware of the baker's mépris.

Warm beer is the result of incompetence. English real ale should be served at (cold) cellar temperature but not refrigerated.

Sure, sure. But for a Texan who ALWAYS drinks beer ABSOLUTELY FREEZING-COLD (and any other beverages that he perceives as beer-like), real ale served at cellar temperature will appear WARM, therefore WRONG. The guy doesn't know the difference between real ale and lager, doesn't know about the gustatory demerits of drinks that are too cold... and he doesn't know he's making tons of assumptions about everything in this world.

PS I forgot to say that "I was only being Brazilian" is not an excuse I've ever heard before... Do you think the recipient of your Brazilian-ness subsequently felt embarrassed to have reacted as she did? -- how culturally insensitive!

If that woman regretted flinching at my Brazilian-ness, she certainly hasn't sent me a telegram about it -- yet!

PPS The possibilities for painful embarrassment are endless. I haven't even begun to bang on about tertiary embarassment -- that's when you feel embarrassed on someone else's behalf because they miraculously fail to feel as embarassed as you feel they ought. Perhaps that's an English thing... 

Aha! The truth comes out! I knew most of the things you think, say, and feel arise from the assumptions you learned as a child in England!

Warm regards from the the patch of Brazilian jungle near the Bastille, Paris.

-- Pedro 

Politeness and propriety cover vast swaths of our behavior. Take the language of greeting, for instance. A Texan arrives in London for the first time and is introduced to a proper Englishman.

“How do you do?” asks the Englishman.

“Oh, I’m doin’ great,” says the Texan. “But why is this beer so damn warm?”

The Texan misunderstood the Englishman’s question. This is how it was supposed to go:

“How do you do?” asks the Englishman.

“How do you do?” replies the Texan.

The question isn’t even a question, but a greeting—given in the full expectation it’ll be answered by the very same greeting. It doesn’t mean “How ya doin’?”, as the Texan assumed. The Englishman DOES NOT WANT TO KNOW how you’re doing, and his greeting is designed to indirectly let you know that.

In France, where I live, it’s an absolute obligation for everyone to greet everyone else by saying “Bonjour.” You walk into a bakery and the baker says “Bonjour.” You MUST say “Bonjour” back. It doesn’t matter how friendly you behave yourself, how full of smiles, how appreciative of the baker’s goods. If you don’t say “Bonjour” you’re as rude as a Barbarian taking a pee inside the Notre Dame cathedral.

The French learn their “Bonjour” so early in their lives, and so insistently from so many trustworthy sources like parents and teachers, that the reflex is totally integrated into their psyches and out of reason’s reach. The baker doesn’t think this:  “Ah, yes, we the French learn to say bonjour so early that we take it extremely seriously—so seriously it’s kinda funny. The Americans have a different way of expressing their friendliness, which they too learn early and take seriously. But since we all understand how the sense of propriety is different from culture to culture, we can appreciate one another without enmity and, indeed, with a lot of humor and tolerance.” No, the baker thinks this: “Mon Dieu, how rude. Get this Barbarian out of my bakery.”

Okay, you blog readers out there. In your opinion, who is being rude to whom in that proverbial French bakery frequented by the proverbial American? And who’s being rude to whom by serving you a pint of goddamn warm beer?

Every culture has its deeply ingrained notions about manners and propriety. But no two cultures are exactly alike. I grew up in Brazil, where the overall style of human interaction is quite informal. People greet friends and acquaintances with kisses on the cheek—women kiss everyone, men kiss women but don’t kiss men, God forbid! Even when you get introduced to someone for the first and last time, however briefly, you might kiss him or her on the cheek.

You grow up with it and you acquire a reflex: you kiss as a matter of course, without much thought, without ever asking yourself if perhaps the kissing is appropriate. Indeed, not to kiss someone becomes the inappropriate behavior, and if you decide not to do it, or if you forget or neglect it, people will think there’s something wrong with you.

The kisses vary in number and intimacy. Sometimes a single kiss (right cheek to right cheek), sometimes two (first the right cheek, then the left one). The lips might not touch the cheek at all, so the cheeks meet lightly and you do a little sucking sound. It’s not quite like the air kisses of certain celebrities in America, say, as contact is actually established. Until very recently, it was absolutely taboo for two straight men kissing each other on the cheek, with the exception of your kissing your father, uncle, or grandfather-and those man-to-man kisses were by no means obligatory. Now it’s becoming fashionable in some circles for men to greet their straigth men friends with the usual cheek contact or a variation thereof, but I expect it’ll be a while until man-to-man cheek-kissing becomes universal.

In the US, it’s extremely rare for friends to kiss each other, however intimate the friendship. Only friends of mine who have lived in Europe seem comfortable with the cheek-to-cheek contact; other friends might hug me, but never kiss, and even their hugging entails tons of space being kept between our bodies. And strangers meeting for the first time never, ever kiss, of course.

Decades ago, when I was a college student in the US, I spent a summer in Brazil and returned to NY for the beginning of the school session in September. The night after my arrival I attended a concert somewhere. During the intermission I ran into a woman my age whom I knew in passing from the previous semester. Without thinking, because I was still in my Brazilian mode, I put my cheek against her and did the sucking thing. She recoiled in horror. A microsecond too late I understood what I had done: I had sexually harassed her, and in public! I thought it’d be impossible to explain the situation, so I just disappeared into the crowd, and we never crossed paths again. It’s been roughly 28 years since the event, and I still remember her disgusted reaction and my own sense of shame.

You guilty and shameful readers out there—care to share some traumatic bouts of bad manners with us?

Sometimes we read articles about foreign cultures in distant lands—the Mongolians, say, or a religious sect on the border of Arizona and Utah—and we wonder at their strange rites. Not only do we wonder, we laugh at them, since they’re so stupid and ridiculous. Kissing a spoon four times before slinging mud in your baby’s face? Those Absinthians are really crazy.

What we don’t realize is that all people, regardless of their culture, have well-established social habits of which they may not be consciously aware. And, to an uneducated observer from another culture, those social habits appear illogical and incomprehensible, if not downright perverse. The bone-crushing handshake of an American used-car salesman, for instance, is quite logical to him, a sign of his being friendly and interested in doing business with you. To a countess in Westphalia it’s a criminal act.

A Parisian student of mine once confessed that she was always uncomfortable when she arrived for her lessons, because I didn’t shake her hand in the exact French way (which of course is quite different from the Bonecruncher). On another occasion I was having lunch with a French friend who became agitated when someone else put a loaf of bread belly-side up on the table. It’s just not done! As it happens, centuries ago French people put the loaves of bread that were meant for lepers belly-side up, to distinguish them from the bread of healthy people. There were no lepers at our lunch table, but that didn’t reassure my friend in any way.

It’s not possible to foresee every culture’s habits and quirks, particularly since so much of it goes unspoken and unexplained. But it’s possible to suspend your critical judgments of people who live differently from you. By that I don’t mean to say that every behavior is equally acceptable, only that before you approve or disapprove of something you must first understand it.

Shaking my student’s hand as she expects me to is a solution. Another is to become playful, bring the phenomenon to the surface, share the details of my culture with her, laugh at myself for being crazy, and perhaps laugh with her for being anxious over a handshake. To dismiss her anxieties altogether is no solution at all.

In this series I’ll look at the quirks of social habits and how they shape our perceptions and behaviors. I’ll tell you about the time a young American woman thought I was molesting her when I was just being “Brazilian.” I’ll tell you about the day I had to eat pig’s knuckles because politeness demanded it of me. And I’ll tell you about the man who insisted on licking the soles of my feet to celebrate the birthday of King Stavros the Injudicious.