Carol’s Column

A smack on the kisser for the New South Africa

Hello. If it’s Tuesday, it must be kissing day.

It seems we are turning into a nation of hearty talkers and kissers and that’s wonderful. Now that we’ve democratised and cast off our repressions, everyone's acting super friendly. It's almost as if we want to visually demonstrate our loving let’s-make-this-work attitude.

Take the usual lift scene. In the old days, you'd get into a lift and whites would stand granite faced, just like anal Brits on an underground tube, nostrils tight and mouths crimped and silent.

Blacks, on the other hand, were always more chatty. More often than not, they'd enter a lift, say rousing hellos and talk about everything.

Today it's different. Today you get into a lift and everyone says: "Hello, how are you?" blacks, whites, greens and yellows. There's an exuberant boisterousness. Conversations between strangers, like fertile mushrooms, spring up everywhere and makes for a happier ride in a lift.

Even when walking in the streets, people greet each other and say "howdy". That's a miracle if you think how we were. Suspicious, unfriendly and frightfully boring.

Talking about kissing, one shouldn't generalise, but you can tell a lot from a kiss.

Take the British, usually restrained, undemonstrative and stiff upper-lipped. Supposedly, Prince Charles is rumoured to have said while kissing Princess Di: "I say, are you alright?"

Upon which she replied: "Yes, quite. Why?"

"Because you moved," he retorted.

This is not an unbelievable tale.

On the other hand, the French have a reputation for being great kissers, but reality does not bear this out.

They'll kiss each other hello on the cheeks. Twice actually. But if you observe them carefully, you'll see they actually don't make contact with each other. The cheeks slide past each other, and their eyes are placed anywhere other than upon the person they’re kissing. This is the frigid kiss taken to its ultimate perfection.

The Belgians kiss three times, also distantly, upon meeting and a more phlegmatic people you cannot imagine. The Italians are exuberant and not only do they kiss with passion but they hug you in a vice-like grip which is good for the soul, liver, spleen and kidneys, too.

Of course there's kissing and kissing. But the true kiss is more than just an expression of passion — it's also a delicious way of saying: "Hello, I like you."

First

Everyone remembers their first kiss.

Mine actually took place with Marvin Alkin, a pimply youth whom I thought resembled a Greek God but in fact looked more like Woody Allen.

He kissed me while we watched a movie called My Swedish Meatball and I thought it quite the most romantic thing ever to have happened to me. It went on for ever. Literally, because we both wore braces and they became entwined.

But to get back to the South African kissing scene. Only last week I realised we're developing a national kiss with, like boerewors and biltong, a distinctly home-grown flavour.

I was attending a dinner for the official launch of the 1994 Getaway Outdoor Adventure Show. The show itself was an expression of our tough pioneering spirit. There was a stunning display of innovative camping, adventure and leisure equipment on display ranging from minute portable toilets (pack one up and carry it around with you), to irradiated lightweight food especially for hiking, to pop-up roofrack tents that turned your roof rack into an el casbah haven in two minutes.

At dinner, I found myself sitting at a table with Bantu Holomisa, Deputy Minister of the Environment and Tourism.

It was an extremely jolly evening and conversation was thick and happy. At the end, we stood to depart and, as always happens, there was much kissing.

In chaste fashion, I kissed each person on the cheek, including Minister Holomisa.

He laughed. "Be direct," he said and gave me a smacker.

I take his point. I'm all for direct kissing in this great wakening country of ours. Besides anything else, it tastes so good.

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