KISSING!

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10299, 7 January 1927, Page 2

KISSING!

OUR QUEEREST HABIT

Kissing is such an everyday affair with us that many people will be surprised to read that the Japenese consider it so vulgar that their film censors have “cut out” 800,000 yards of kisses and embraces during the past rear (savs a psychologist in the “Daily Mail”). The fact is that the kiss as we know it is practically confined to the white man’s countries, and is not practised in Eastern Asia. Orientals consider it (f’.ieer habit. Indeed, aii Hit kissing a Japanese ever gets is Horn his mother in his early babyhood. Thereafter the kiss is taboo as immodest, and even in family life the chief wav of showing affection- is by act ofrkindness or courtesy. Even after long absence they do not clasp hands, although they may go so far as to stroke one another.

Our kising is thought to have been first discovered in remote -times by peoples living in the eastern part of the Mediterranean. The fact that it exists among mothers and their babies nearly all over the world, including even those countries where it is unknown among adults, suggests that it is a development of the maternal kiss.

Although kissing has now conquered all Europe except Lapland, the conquest is'probably a comparatively modern one. Thus in mediaeval times kissing seems to have been confined chiefly to the cultivated classes. Further, in its early days it was largely used for sacred purposes or as a sign of reverence and respect. M e still have examples of this in the practice of kissing the Testament on taking oath, and in many uses of Eastern and even Western churches. It is only with the advance of civilisation that the kiss has come to be used more and more as a sign of affection. But although kissing with the lips is unknown to a large proportion of the human race, another form of kiss tlie “nose kiss,” is very extensively practised. It is even found in one corner of Europe, Lapland. This kiss, which takes various fcims in different countries, is found in its most typical and refined form in China. When a Chinaman kisses he applies his nose to his beloved one’s cheek and takes_ a long, "breath, meanwhile lowering his eyelids. Although he gently smacks his lips he does not bring them into actual contact with the embraced cheek. Our kiss they consider not only odious but suggestive of cannibalism, and Chinese mothers threaten their children when naughty with the “white man’s kiss.” Even with their own kisses they are very sparing, and their use is practically confined to lovers or mothers and young children. Although the nose kiss has a much wider distribution than the European variety there are lew peoples amongst whom kisses of any kind appear to he unknown. Chief among these aie some of the Indians of both North and South America.