And another thing…
Cuddles
Its not culturally appropriate even for a man and his wife to walk holding hands in public. Men walk together holding hands some times, men and women never. I get to shake the hands of many of the male teachers each morning. Apart from that physical contact isn’t obviously approipriate and neither would I seek it as it comes from a sort of trust built up on top of, amongst other thigns, that flirting protocol I mentioned before. Since that stuff needs to be at least re-learned, I’m not fretting that I dont fall into bear-hugs with my colleagues every day. In fact in London I did not. But in the evenings in London I would dance and my favourite people were there to cuddle and hug: Im not going to name names, you know who you are. And I miss it.
Today there was a hulabaloo in the staff-room. One of the teachers had found an advert in a newspaper that showed a black silhouette of a woman wearing a red bikini. He ran round the room thrusting the paper in front of female teachers and making some heck-of-a row about it. I didn’t get the details but I heard one of the older women saying that he never grows up.
There is less sexual imagery here in day-to-day life then in London. Though TV, from what I have seen, seems to have a high proportion of gangsta’ rappers surrounded by pipe-clearner thin dancers in hot pants practising hip separation moves.
I’m reminded of a story I heard about Lindy Hop: (correct me if I’ve remembered this incorrectly please) Blacks found dances from the ballroom tradition unacceptable because of the sustained contact between men and women. Whites were shocked by black women making a spectacle of their hip twists and wiggles. Lindy, therefore offends everyone with its combination of close-hold, and open hold twisting.
Comments are closed.