This is a booked posting. So:

Although most of us consider kissing part of common romantic behaviour, it isn’t so in all cultures. It is not long since Japanese considered kissing strange and exotic erotic technique professed by the wordly women.

In my own culture kissing is kind of private thing and kissing in public a statement of a kind. Usually people don’t kiss openly on the streets. When I was a little girl I used to hide my head in the pillows while there was a kissing scene in the telly. Still it makes me uncomfortable to see people to kiss in live, even if I am used to seeing it on the screen. You would not easily catch me kissing either.  While we are a bit inhibited in this sense, nobody in my culture considers kissing itself immoral or unnatural. It is just private.

Anthropology doesn’t offer clear answer to the question, whether kissing is learned or instinctive. Yet many primates kiss in their own ways. Bonobos (Congo Chimpanzees or so called Pygmy Chimpanzees) use kissing to soothing tension among them. On the other hand many Eastern Asian cultures have traditionally found kissing repulsive practice.

“A surprising number of Asian (and African and South American) groups have learned to view mouth-to-mouth kissing as dirty, dangerous, and disgusting, something akin to sticking one’s tongue in another’s nose and wiggling it around. It turned off [an Asian woman, married to an American, Caucasian man] to imagine, anticipate, or experience it, and she felt confused and unhappy when she saw how much her husband enjoyed it.” [From "The Kiss," A 50th Anniversary Lecture -- The Kinsey Institute; October 24, 1998.]

You don’t see open kissing in the Bollywood (Indian Hindi) movies. Not because it would be considered disgusting, but because good girls don’t go around kissing strange men and actresses need to take care of their reputation. You may remember the fuss about Richard Gere kissing actress Shilpa Shettyin AIDS awareness rally. And he just kissed her face. Many Indians considered this incident vulgar. Some of the protesters shouted “death to Shilpa Shetty.”

When attitudes are this serious, one understands why kissing is not popular as it is not cultural norm to kiss others than family members. Yet kissing itself is known in Hindu tradition and it acknowledges at least 40 different ways of kissing, but as Prakash Javadekar, the spokesman of the nationalist Hindu party said: “Such a public display is not part of Indian tradition.”

The question comes even more difficult, when one reads about Pakistani religious leaders getting anoyed not about a kissing(which by the way cannot be shown in local television), but because one of the Pakistani Muslim actresses had kissed a Hindu actor in a Bollywood film. Suddenly what was a question of propriety turns to question of religion. Yet kissing is not prohibited in Islam and I’ve understood the Prophet Muhammad kissed his wives. Yet again as any other part of romantic behaviour this is not allowed in public.

Man kisses woman in the altar after western wedding ceremony. Many don’t see that the origin of the ritual was less romantic and more religious. Traditionally man first kissed religious object and then forward its blessing to his wife whit the kiss. Also southern European greeting kiss relates to catholic kiss of peace between parishioners.

Yet somewhere on the way this religious kissing turned more romantic. Gentlemen started to kiss hands of the ladies, because open kissing was not propriet among couples in love. This maybe due to idea of dangerousness of kissing. Unlike in the East we don’t find kisses repulsive, but instead dangerously tempting. I just red some one to blog about, what leads to cheating and (s)he agreed that kissing starts it.

Tiefer also talked about the dangerous kiss in his lecture. He described the western lore about the kisses that made wrong people to fall in love together (like Romeo and Juliet) or were a vessels of betrayal. Kisses were seen potent in messing people’s sensibilities. He saw kissing as a bonding instrument, just like most women do. It is modern folklore that prostitutes don’t kiss because of this; kissing would make them more emotionally vulnerable and used.

Few Links:

Kissing Explained (for teens)

How Kissing Works

I’ve heard the question so many times along the years: “How old are you?” And a comment after that I look much younger. Or occasionally, when I am not ready to say (you should never ask lady’s age!) people start guessing. Easily five years is dropped of in either case. And I’ve got few wrinkles. Some say it is blessing, but I am not always so sure.

When I was younger I used to think it as a kind of insult: “Am I not mature enough?” I was well ahead of my peers in University studies and was still asked whether I was younger. I remember one guys horrified face, when I told him that I was doing my master thesis – and his relief, when hearing of my mature age of 22. See in my country people are usually older, when they do it.

In Italy I was during one crazy afternoon I was asked by two (Italian) persons, unaware of each other, whether I was 16th or 28th. I don’t know the reasons of the other person (he was Italian guy whit whom I was playing shy to be left alone), but the lady who guessed the upper one, told it was due to my maturity. I was 23 by the way. It was one of the weirdest moments of my life, along whit the moment, when I was asked in India whether I was Indian. Can only guess what made to guys to ask that. Maybe it was my accent?!

It was annoying when I was treated as a little girl, when I was younger. They took one look on my face and decided that I must be young. When I was teaching 15-years-olds, I was asked whether I was in high school – I was 25. The older I get more nicer it feels as I have reached the age I’m not treated as a kid anymore. They don’t anymore think I’m twenty – now I’m 25.

Men don’t usually dare to ask my age (although it happens). They seem to have well learned that you may never ask woman’s age. The usually questions only come, when they got some clue, that I might not be as young as they suppose. But usually they seem to think me younger, at least I think so, as I’ve been getting younger and younger admires. They don’t even take the clue of my girl-friends, who are mostly of my own age, occasionally older.

It seems that there is growing adoption tend among celebrities and especially the foreign adoption. They seem to consider it as a form of charity. Yet there are always certain problems in foreign adoption.

I’ve been thinking of writing about this issue for a while, but I wanted first to write about the Ready-Made-Family. It is not easy issue as there are a lot of basic feelings involved.

International adoption by the famous people is not a new thing. Already 1920s jazz-girl Josephine Backer collected a multicultural family, but what I’ve heard the adopted children of hers did not remember her with much affection.

I’ve known children that were adopted from abroad. Among them there are considerable amount of sad stories. Many of these children don’t seem to belong. They are treated as foreigners in their own culture. And if they are older when adopted, they remember the culture, where they came from.

My friend, who had studied them in Netherlands (the country that was one of the first to have large amount of foreign adoptions) told me, that many of these children had huge problem and many were depressed. They needed therapeutical peer groups to process their feelings.

There is another even more serious problem. It seems that some of these celebs have given large donations for institutions they adopted from and that the rules were bent in their cases. Somebody wrote that what do we care of such matters, if the children gets a better lives. But does wealth necessary make your life so much better and happier? There is a big ethical problem in here, as the law is not the same for everybody. Does end really justify the means?

When I was living in India one of my friends was working in local adoption society and they were afraid of child trafficking. If the wealthy westerns want children and are willing to pay the price, there will be no problems. It seems that some poor families even make children for the reason of profiting from adoption. These children would not exists without foreigners willing to pay to adopt a child, so nobody is not really “saving them from their fate”. What seems small money in the West may be huge in some countries – and especially among the poorest of the poor.

There are also countries that adopt away unwanted children. In Eastern-Europe they are usually sick or handicapped. In some Asian countries the unwanted sex – girls. It is true that sick children are better taken cared of in west – but is it healthy to let some nation to get rid of the unwanted. And especially where the girls are given away this is generating bad imbalance between sexes.

I am not totally condemning the foreign adoption. I just say that you should not see it as any form of foreign aid or charity. Let’s face it – there are far too many ethical problems in it.

Last week was full of sudden fruitful meetings with friends and other. On the other hand I was tired due to workload and it made me a bit angry for those, who did not seem to look after their share of responsibility, although these encounters seemed to save me some-how.

I had several suprising encounters. Not one was planned or initiated by me. I met several people that I had made no plans to meet and there were some non-human encounters too.

One was with little mouse I saw running. I had to make sure it was not rat first, and after that I was just interested. (I don’t like rats in wild at least). The other non human was suprise fire-works at saturday evening, very flashy too. I could see them above the roofs of opposite buildings. Later I heard that they were celebrating Chinese New Year.

One suprising encounter was with a customer who had suddenly lost her husband last week. I ended up talking to her more as a fellow human being than an official. Some times our work is like that. I talked to her about my fathers death and what it had ment. I was happy she felt I could understand and help. Sometimes our work is just to listen.

My Valentine was quite nice as I pumbed in to a good friend of mine in a bookshop. So I was sulking of valentine’s for no reason at all. We went to a pizza and ended up talking of many things and in the end of weddings.

I almost forgot to tell you about my magical journey home in the subway. In a next stop a dwarf-like man came in to sit opposite of me and red a cheap edition of Romeo and Juliet. I had my self romantic novels in my bag. The girl on the other side of the passage was reading fairy tales. It felt somehow like a real fairy-tale itself.

It seems that I have been talking lot of weddings lately. I priefly talked about it with my sister in the friday evning also. She agreed to me that she can not understand why somebody spends several hundreds of dollars to a bad quality dress that one can only use in one day. 

And why ever does it has to be white. I deeply curse queen Victoria, who started this silly tradition.  In my country still in the beginning of 20th century the dress was black sunday dress. The sign of the bride was a huge flower-crown with red ribbons. The dress was new, but it was certainly worn afterwards too.  We both (me and my sis)  like Indian style of red wedding sari or dress much more than western white.

But this was just a side course. We talked about other issues with my sis too – about church (both of us being critical) and the state of world. In the end way played genious edition of Trivial Pursuit just asking the questions. Some questions were silly easy and others impossible, at least to us not wery interested in sports.

I also met my other good friend in saturday. She needs to find new job. We talked about few of her friends and being spinster. And we ended up questioning what men would see in us, or in women in general. We don’t know the answer. I had a bad-hair-day and did not feel my best.

In sunday I was thinking how my anger towards other issues reflected my blogging too. I was more agressive than usually. I mean that my valentines day was kind of nice,  expect that I was really tired after heavy work.

Jane Austen is as a personality suprisingly modern and as a writer timeless.   Her vivid characters and wise stories continue to inspire, as it has done for 200  years, both men and women as well.  She was not just a writer but also a thinker and one could even call her philosopher. And she is not culture relative as Bollywood-style filmatisation “Bride and Prejudice” has shown us.

She was once engaged for just a day, for it seems that the fiancé was not satisfactory for her in the end. She was tempted of having her own home, but not at any price, as so many today’s single women do as well.

One can symbatise with Jane’s want of her own home. She was living with her parents and later with widowed mum, who has not been supposed to be the easiest personality. I know how it is like as I lived one painful year with my parents as an adult.She seems to have had a true love as younger, but It was not success story, as his family was wanting for better than poor daughter of vicar. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? But there are also other connections with her life and especially youth in her books.

And we can be grateful, as her “children” have been great source of enjoyment and blessing for so many. It would be unlikely that she could have continued her writing, in case of becoming a housewife. She would have liked to marry tough, but on her own conditions, too.

Jane’s sister destroyed a lot of her letters after her death, so we know only a one side of her life. She was self-made writer, who developed her skills to extensive reading and writing since her teen-years.

An amateur like me can see her as true forerunner of more realistic literature in the times of Romantic-movement. When Dickens, godfather of Realistic-movement, was born, she had already published her first and sold other to be published just little after. And Austen was much more down to earth than Dickens.

Besides the writer, Austen has also been respected as an ethical thinker. Alasdair McIntyre considers her the follower of Aristotelian tradition and last great follower of Virtue ethics. He thinks that ethical thinking is clearly visible in her novels. By the way Aristotle too had a book called “On Sense and Sensible“.

She is suprisingly universal, as I tought after seeing Bride and Prejudice. These Indian girls of modern days seem to be even more related to her reality than modern western women are. But even the modernity has not moved them very far either. We can share the life – and experiences throug her.

This is story of two ladies I met in India. You can quess it might not be very easy choice or fate in such a traditional country, even in a rather modern metropol.

Both women were in their thirties and had punch of lovely brothers. Both were or had been their fathers darlings. Others father had died. Both had good education and were working girls. Both were pretty and had strong characters. The other one was from south and rather dark and the other one was from lover cast, neither one a recomendation in India for marriage. Both were devoted hindus.

The younger one had international relations and hoped to find a foreing man. Yet she wanted to stay virgin until marriage. Now only western men to look for virgin brides, would have been devoted christian and they would probably not look for devoted Hindu as their wife. She was little desperate and I could never get myself to tell her that fact. She told me that Indian men fancied her, but did not take her seriously.

Older one told me that her parents had given up hope. She didn’t seem to mind that much. I think she was happy as their and her brothers darling. Although she was appeart to be in love with a collegue, but I did not think she took that seriously, but one never knows. He did not take it seriously, because she was lover cast, but he kept teasing her.

Bollywood films are often love stories. This in the country, where marriage is ruled by many other qualities than love. Even when decission is made by partners themselves, and not the parents, they consider many other issues than love. This can be seen a bit tragic. And often it is still family that at least recommends if not decides about marriage.

I brought this up, because when I think of them, I always see my own situation in more bright light. My situation is not really so bad, as long I don’t try to reach the stars.