Greetings and Kissing

Namaste, bowing at a 90 degree angle, bowing at 45 degree angle or prostrating all the way to the ground. Every culture has its own way of greeting each other. In the Malay culture, the way of greeting is an extension of both hands which gently and gracefully turns into a respectful handshake followed by kissing of the older person's hands.

My children simply refuses to perform this act of greeting and it bothers me to no end. Of course now that I think back, I had never consciously or directly taught them to do this since they were small because we were living here in the United States where malay culture is not the main stream culture. Sure, I could have surrounded myself with Malays and trained my children to behave accordingly. Unfortunately, I'm not that faithful to the Malay culture myself, thinking that I need to disassociate myself from it because I could plainly see the bad parts of it. I began to see where culture stubbornly overlaps Islam and obscures it. I began to see the ignorance hovering in front of my eyes all these years and I fought to erase it. I began to delve into the international community and drop most of the cultural practices I was raised with.

Shaking hands and kissing them no longer appeared preferable to me. Instead I familiarized myself with the handshake that dissolved into hugs and kisses on the cheeks. In fact it occured to me that hand kissing is dangerously close to an act of worship, though the fact that it actually does or does not lies not in my hands. I can see it as being cultural though.

Recently, we have been mingling more with our malay counterparts and a problem situated itself in our midst. We realized that our children are lacking manners in the cultural sense, the malay culture. I began to check the balance and saw that I had been quite unjust in judging my own culture. Everytime I'm faced with a conflict I tell myself to go back to ground zero, which is the Quran and Sunnah. So I did. It was then that I realized that it's categorised under manners and respecting the elders. So frantically I taught my children to shake hands the way we do in the malay culture, though we didn't press them so much in the hand kissing part. In fact, S outrightly insisted that she didn't want to do it because it's like bowing to somebody. Inside, I actually felt relieved she didn't feel the need to conform to something just because it's the accepted norm. I also felt glad that she actually has a reason to back up her whys.

Still, we have problems getting the children to go and greet people in the first place. They didn't appear to like company in big groups. It takes time for them to warm up to people and they really disliked people looking at them and proclaiming their cuteness and what nots. It is at these times that I kicked myself for not having instilled these malay cultural practices in my children since they were small. The objective behind the cultural practice is good because it teaches the young to respect the old, though I personally think there's too much reverence involved. However, since it's so ingrained in the culture, when I do go back home, I will be obliged to do it their way so as not to offend, but then again, I only do it to my parents and parent in laws and of course my grandmothers.

H adamantly refused to shake hands and when I asked him why, he said,

"Their hands might be dirty."

The first thing that came to my mind when he said this was OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I don't think he has it, but I think he was simply making up excuses. Then he gave another excuse,

"They were laughing at me," he said, eyes threatening to spill out tears.

I restrained the exasperation and anger coursing through me and proceeded to tell him about emulating the prophet Muhammad SAW. Manners are an important part of Islam that most Muslims today do not possess. We are too consumed with the barriers between us such as nationality, wahabism, cultural backgrounds and what nots to see that our ummah is actually a beautiful piece of woven cloth of many colored threads.

N said yesterday,

"Some people don't look like Muslims."

I asked her,

"How is a Muslim supposed to look like?"

"White and wears hijab," she replied.

I wanted to laugh but I didn't. So i told them how Islam is beautiful and special in that anyone can be a Muslim regardless of color, race and nationality.

In the end, I somehow managed to have H agree to at least try and greet people with a handshake. His nods comforted me even though I know they might not amount to anything at all. S and N are already on a roll shaking hands with people though they omitted the kiss. I cringe inside when I see some Malays shoving their hands up to my girls' head in preparation to be kissed. The girls never responded with the kisses and I just stood there not knowing what to do. My mother in law does that too, to her sons and to me. My stepfather on the other hand, always quickly takes his hand away before I could kiss it. My own mother never requires me to even shake her hand and kiss them. She envelops me in a hug instead. I suppose if we were Japanese, we would be required to bow down. Imagine the dilemma I'd be faced with then.