I was surprised when I went to a well-known bookstore and asked if they had a book on etiquette. Emily Post or Amy Vanderbilt or any other author, I said.
The book information clerk looked blankly at me. Punch the authors’ names on your machine, I told her. Ano po bang category? she asked. Etiquette nga, I said clearly, and spelled it. Ano po ba yon, architecture? I almost answered “Jungle Animals,” but I had just read my good horoscope and I was feeling magnanimous.
Alas, nobody now seems to know what etiquette is. Has the word become obsolete and therefore phased out? Or is it because no one these days practices it? Or maybe its meaning has changed—and it is now believed to be so archaic that it implies only knowing how to hold a cup with the little finger sticking out? Or is it still just civility, “rules of social behavior that serve to make life more pleasant,” otherwise known as politeness or manners?
I remember, in my Catholic school, etiquette was well-understood because the nuns made us practice it. But even in the public schools there was a grade school pre-WWII book entitled “Good Manners and Right Conduct,” although I don’t know if anyone understood it.
Jurassic
Of course I’m not jurassic enough to expect kids to still go through the ritual of “mano po.” When I was a child, I used to hate it, mainly because the oldster whose hand you were about to kiss was often inattentive or distracted. And so it landed on your cheek or your chin or even your ear.
My father did not oblige or encourage his children to kiss everybody’s hand. He said that just a polite “Good morning or “Good afternoon” was fine. He was ahead of his time. It’s not the ritual but the attention that accompanies it which counts. But shouldn’t oldsters, too, respect the young by paying attention when blessing them? Else how would they learn respect by example? The later beso-beso also suffers from the same irrelevance, since it has become so superficial and even fake, as well.
Attention deficit is a common affliction of the young today and, I suspect, some adults, too. There are just too many things to be distracted by. Everything awaits quick delivery and instant gratification. The cell phone accompanies one even in the toilet (only to find out that the text was an offer of “Manhid Ka!” by Vice Ganda).
Information is ever a Google away on a tablet, as well as the photo of the food laid out on somebody’s table, and, of course, the guests. The post office has gotten obsolete, its only job now being to deliver bills. Hate late? Meals can get to your house in 20 minutes flat, unless it’s the delivery boy who’s flattened by a speeding bus. The computer does everything but wash your face for you.
And so in this age of time saving and still having no time, what does “etiquette” consist of?
Today, many young people no longer say “Good morning” or “Good afternoon,” substituting it instead with a low left-to-right-motion of the hand. It is not particularly addressed to anybody in the room, so that those who miss it will brand the youngster “impolite.” Shy kids are particularly vulnerable because their “hi” can hardly be heard and the timid hand wave imperceptible.
So what’s lacking on the young people’s part? Same banana. Attention! Focus on each person in the room, and if not too taxing, follow with the elder’s name—Hi, Tito Roy, Hi, Tita Wendy, Hi, Tito Alex. And the adult should be just as courteous by acknowledging the “hi” and the wave with a nod or a kind word.
Why all the fuss, a grandson said. Etiquette is simply common sense. Don’t try to get into the elevator until everybody has vacated it. Don’t cut the car in front of you or risk road rage. Don’t hang on the strap of a bus or metro rail if you haven’t taken a bath. When escorting your old maid aunt, walk on the street side of the sidewalk because you are quicker at jumping out of the path of a speeding vehicle.
On this score, I found an interesting note in an etiquette book I just now borrowed from Karina Bolasco. “It used to be that a man escorting a woman on the street walked on the inside, so that if waste were thrown out a window, it would hit him and not her. Then when sanitation improved, people stopped tossing out their waste. Now the men began to walk on the street side to keep her from being splashed by mud thrown up by carriage wheels. Technology has replaced carriages as the primary source of travel and men once again might walk on the inside particularly at night, in dangerous neighborhoods, to protect women from muggers and purse snatchers lurking in doorways.”
Update
But how do we update the rest of the etiquette? What do you do when two girls are riding in one car with two ladylike gays and the vehicle stalls? The gays are too dainty to push the car (or change the tire). What does etiquette say about two girls pushing a car with two guys inside?
Concerning pets. Shouldn’t visitors who love their animals put diapers on their dogs to prevent them from marking the hostess’ upholstery? Or humping the hostess’ chihuahua?
The cat lover next door’s pure-bred felines are imprisoned in one room that overlooks my driveway. They are beautiful, well-behaved creatures, but their owner, who talks to them all the time, seldom cleans their prison. It is redolent with cat poo. People who pass our driveway get to inhale the unbearable smell. (I gave up telling the owner and will just wear a hospital mask when I sun on the driveway). There is an etiquette code on noisy cats but none on stinky cat rooms.
What is the etiquette on a girl who sleeps over in your son’s room? Do you scold them? Or change the pillow cases for them? When you invite a good friend who lives in with a married man to your house for dinner, what do you say when she asks if he can join her too? When you invite your friends who insist on taking their husbands or children along, do you feed only the friends? Hehe. This should be solved by etiquette books, but who wants to do the updating?
