How to avoid the foreigner faux-pas

Are there specialists in international manners who can save us (and me, mostly) from making colossal gaffes when we travel?

Life coaches, meditation gurus and spiritual guides? I have never met any such people but they’re out there, sure enough. I wonder if there are also specialists in international manners who can save you (and me, mostly) from making colossal gaffes when we travel? Where is it an unforgivable faux-pas to blow your nose loudly on public transport or touch someone on the head?

I do know from bitter experience that it is not the done thing to point your feet at the paramount chief of a South Pacific village while seated on the mud floor of his hut or to wear a swimsuit in an Austrian alpine sauna.

There’s a new book from Lonely Planet with the lofty title of Guide to Life. The theme is “wisdom from the world’s cultures”, which stretches from the Swiss belief in feel-good food (they devour more chocolate per capita than any other nation, apparently) to the more modest Swedish belief in “lagom”, the concept of “sharing everything in moderation”.

The Finns have a saying that translates to “speech is silver, silence is golden”, which suggests reticence and a distrust of the over-emotional. I am particularly interested in how the Nordic and Scandinavian nations approach life because I have never been to those icy lands. All I know has been acquired from TV crime shows, which might have skewed my belief that corpses lie beneath every snowdrift and female detectives all wear bulky handknits and fabulous overcoats.

My Sydney-based Finnish friend Eugene just laughs at this, although he’s in a permanent state of fear that I’ll suddenly hug or cheek-kiss him. He reminds me his home country has topped the annual UN Global Happiness Report since 2018. So, take that with a shot of wild cloudberry lakka.

Back to travel snafus. Never use your left hand to scoop up food in India or wear shoes on Japanese tatami matting. I’ve been told that the thumbs-up sign is quite offensive in Greece, possibly the same as thrusting the middle finger in an up-you jab; raising your hands with palms facing out is a similarly bad idea. Cheek kissing in France is such a minefield that at least one British tour operator has produced a how-to manual. It seems the greeting varies across geographic regions from two to four kisses, with the exception of the west coast department of Charente-Maritime, where one peck is considered quite enough.

So, Eugene, I’ll meet you over there in La Rochelle when I’ve completed my diplomas as a curator of cultural excellence and etiquette enabler and can proceed with head held high.

Lonely Planet’s Guide to Life ($39.99; lonelyplanet.com).