1-27 Cultural Insight - The Handshake

 CULTURE Insight - Handshakes: [27] - handshakes are common between genders, mostlyusing the ‘African handshake’, consisting of thestandard western grip, followed by a loose gripping ofeach others thumbs by the fingers, and then revertingback to a western grip.- Handshakes are usually soft, though it has slowlyadapted to the traditionally firmer western grip(excluding the ‘wet fish’ handshake, which gives mostpeople the woobly woo’s). They are also oftenaccompanied by touching the right elbow with the lefthand, a sign of respect that will be explained further ina later week.- Handshakes between good friends can last forminutes, often the whole conversation, with the action(thumb clasp) repeating itself as a sign that theconversation is ending.- it is common for men to hold hands, even whilstwalking down the road. It speaks to the often far morepublic displays of affection shown within the separategender groups, compared to across genders. You arefar more likely to see a man holding the hand ofanother man then that of his wife. The other man islikely to be a good friend and peer, and they may wellhave passed through the manhood initiation ulwalukotogether.   - And also so for women. This is because the culturegenerally separates out the groups, which each grouphaving their own place to hang out at publicgatherings, as well as expectations, taboos, rolesassigned to people not only dependent on their gender,but on their age group. Of course, in a modern andurban context, these dynamics do not always exist tothe same extent.   UBuntu Bridge has been teaching Xhosa since 2006, there are various products, learning services and tools at : https://www.learnxhosaonline.com/store   #ubuntu #learnxhosa #xhosa #xhosalanguage #isiXhosa