Kiss & Smell
I have a reprint of Quijano de Manila's collection of love stories based on real events, Reportage on Lovers, and I'm all smiles after reading it. The first chapter was about Valentine's Day, courtship, and kissing. I love the way Nick Joaquin paces information and how he used research in making his points convincing and entertaining.
I'm particularly amused by how our ancestors kissed. Sinibaldo de Mas, a Spanish historian, said that even after they have taught the natives to kiss using the lips (gee, so how did they do that?), Filipinos during those times still rub noses and I guess up to now, that way of kissing is still alive. I proudly carry that tradition :)
I guess our sense of smell is very keen as our sense of taste. We love putting things to our mouths and noses.
When I was a kid, I was a beneficiary of the sniff-kiss or more popularly known as the kiss-nghot. It is combination of a kiss and some sort of sniffing (singhot). In past family reunions, my lola (grandmother) or my titas (aunts) would do this after the customary mano. A mano is a way to show respect to elders by leading their right/left hand and letting it slightly touch your forehead. For me, a way to know if it's done correctly is if you feel the middle knuckle to your head.
Kissing and smelling go hand in hand.
If we talk about smell, we have a lot of words associated with it (bantot, bango, halimuyak, antot, maasim, mapakla, etc.) and we have degrees in defining the intensity of odor especially if we think about food. The common knowledge is that anything that smells good is deemed good for eating like fruits or a favorite home cooked meal.
The ironic thing is that no matter how revolting is the smell of bagoong, it is unthinkable not to have it with green mangoes. It's only in recent years that I discovered how good this "appetizer" is through my wife. There's also the queso de bola that my mom loves to eat every Christmas that has a very strong odor.
What can I say? Maybe, it's one of the most unexplainable things in the universe. If it smells strong/bad, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's not good.
I'm particularly amused by how our ancestors kissed. Sinibaldo de Mas, a Spanish historian, said that even after they have taught the natives to kiss using the lips (gee, so how did they do that?), Filipinos during those times still rub noses and I guess up to now, that way of kissing is still alive. I proudly carry that tradition :)
I guess our sense of smell is very keen as our sense of taste. We love putting things to our mouths and noses.
When I was a kid, I was a beneficiary of the sniff-kiss or more popularly known as the kiss-nghot. It is combination of a kiss and some sort of sniffing (singhot). In past family reunions, my lola (grandmother) or my titas (aunts) would do this after the customary mano. A mano is a way to show respect to elders by leading their right/left hand and letting it slightly touch your forehead. For me, a way to know if it's done correctly is if you feel the middle knuckle to your head.
Kissing and smelling go hand in hand.
If we talk about smell, we have a lot of words associated with it (bantot, bango, halimuyak, antot, maasim, mapakla, etc.) and we have degrees in defining the intensity of odor especially if we think about food. The common knowledge is that anything that smells good is deemed good for eating like fruits or a favorite home cooked meal.
The ironic thing is that no matter how revolting is the smell of bagoong, it is unthinkable not to have it with green mangoes. It's only in recent years that I discovered how good this "appetizer" is through my wife. There's also the queso de bola that my mom loves to eat every Christmas that has a very strong odor.
What can I say? Maybe, it's one of the most unexplainable things in the universe. If it smells strong/bad, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's not good.
