THE NEW YORK TIMES: Social distancing made the cheek kiss a much rarer greeting, and polling suggests it may stay that way. Some say good riddance, but others miss the warmth of times past.
Twice a year, Louise Al-Hakkak would sit on her front porch in Burgundy, waiting for her sister Flora and dreading the moment of “la bise.” In this Franco-Iraqi family, only Flora enjoyed France’s traditional two-kiss greeting on the cheeks. For Ms. Al-Hakkak and her father, “It was more a chore than anything else.”
But times have changed.
“Covid made us stop doing the bise,” said Ms. Al-Hakkak, 23. “It’s a lot easier now. I don’t need to ask myself tons of questions about whether I should do it or not.”
In France, the bise is a longstanding tradition for greeting loved ones, or even strangers, that was upended by the coronavirus. Throughout the pandemic, French authorities have urged people to avoid physical contact to prevent the virus from spreading.
But now, with more than half of the French population at least partly vaccinated and most lockdown restrictions lifted, many are split over whether to go back to the way greetings used to be and questioning whether the bise was all that great to begin with. » | Gaëlle Fournier | Saturday, July 31, 2021
Quelle horreur ! Ce serait comme du fromage sans le vin ! – Mark
