International Greeting Methods (1)
国际问候方式(1)
A: How was your trip to France last week? Do you think it was a successful trip?
A:上周你的法国之行怎么样?你认为此次旅行顺利吗?
B: In regards to the business I had planned to get done, I think it went pretty well. I visited both branch offices in Paris and Nice. But there were a lot of things to get used to that I didn’t expect….
B:从我计划要做的事情来看,我认为还比较圆满。我走访了巴黎和尼斯的分部。但是有很多我没有预料到的事情要去适应。
A: Like what?
A:举个例子?
B: For one thing, I got kissed more in the three days I was in France than the last ten years living in Beijing!
B:一个例子就是,我在法国的3天里得到的亲吻比我在北京的10年里得到的吻还要多。
A: What? Kissed? What are you talking about?
A:什么?亲吻?你在说什么呀?
B: The French people usually kiss as a form of greeting when you first meet a person, or when you see a friend…. It’s not real kissing; it’s just like a little peck on both sides of your face, on the cheek. Or what’s more common is “air-kisses” which is just making the sound of kissing instead of really kissing your cheek. Because I’m used to just a nice, firm handshake, it took a little getting used to the kissing type of greeting in France.
B:法国人与某人第一次见面或看见一个朋友时,通常的问候方式是亲吻……不是真的吻,只是在你脸的两侧即脸颊上轻轻吻一下。更常见的是那种“飞吻”,就是只发出亲吻的声音而不是真的吻脸颊。因为我习惯了见面只是友好地紧紧握一下手,所以花了些工夫才习惯法国这种亲吻式的问候。
A: Anything else that was different?
A:还有什么地方不同?
B: Yeah, they also tend to stand a lot closer to you when they talk. The space bubble around you is a bit smaller. I had to be careful not to subconsciously back up when people got closer than I’m used to.
B:有,他们还习惯在讲话时站得离你非常近,所以你周围的活动空间就变小了。当别人靠我太近,让我不习惯时,我不得不注意,以免会下意识地后退。
A: Why would backing up be bad?
A:后退有什么不好的?
B: Because people might interpret it to mean you don’t like them, when in reality it is because of different social customs and conditioning.
B:因为人们可能会以为你不喜欢他们,而事实上是不同的社会习俗和制约造成的。