Letter from Warren Johnston to Bobby [Letter 169]

Letter from Warren Johnston to Bobby [Letter 169]

#122 Wednesday 31 January 7:30 am Darling - Last night's English class lasted for two hours and was followed by another hour of questions about American customs and ways of life - the questions having been occasioned principally by the movies. The first question that came up was evidently the one everyone most wanted to know the answer to - in the West, and specifically in America, who gives whom “mouth kisses”? I explained about kissing in general, citing the congratulatory kiss on the cheek between Frenchmen as something we didn't do altho Grandfather and I kissed on meeting til I was well over twenty - as father and son do occasionally. I didn't have time to get into the weaknesses of a system which tacitly permits anybody (almost) to kiss anybody else's baby, but I did - getting around to handshakes - say that there were a lot of people who would prefer to adopt the Chinese system of shaking one's own hands on meeting somebody else. (I showed them the knuckle-breaker type of handshake, the slithering fish type, etc.) One young man had been given to understand that the “correct” handshake consisted of 3 shakes - no more, no less. So the puzzling question came up as to why our erstwhile colonel, on meeting the assistant Korean camp leader, had stood shaking his hand for several minutes while he got lost in conversation (that had then to be interpreted) Off to round up the stragglers from yesterdays inoculations I love you Warren

1945-01-31

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Wilson College, C. Elizabeth Boyd '33 Archives.

WJ169

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C. Elizabeth Boyd '33 Archives at Wilson College

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