Here’s a quick look at how people of different countries commonly greet each other when they meet:
Italians: “Ciao, come stai?”; “Bene, benissimo.”
French: “Bonjour, ça va?”; “Oui, ça va bien.”
Spaniards: “Hola, ¿cómo estás?”; “Muy bien.”
Brits: “How are you?”; “Fine, thanks.”
Maltese: “Kif int?”; “U nsomma, mhux ħażin, hux.”
Although in our vocabulary books we’re taught to answer a ‘kif int?’ question with ‘tajjeb, grazzi’, have you ever noticed how we very rarely do that? Instead there’s always an ‘insomma’, a so-so, delivered with the gravest of tones and a pinched face.
When meeting people we love to pepper our small talk with a list of our ailments. “U nsomma, għandi dahri mfarrak, għandi uġigħ ta’ ras ittektek, u għandi xerqa ma nistax neħles minna.” (“So-so, I’ve got a backache, a splitting headache and I can’t get rid of this pesky cough.”)
I doesn’t matter how much you know the person: did you just happen to be sitting next to each other on the bus? Did you last see each other 10 years ago? There is no better way to catch up than an aches and pain update.
It is not the first time that by the time the greeting handshake is over, I’d know all about a person’s body troubles but very little about who they are and what they do in life.
Why are we like this? A friend of mine is convinced it stems from the culture of the evil eye. “Subconsciously we are scared that if we say we’re doing well, then that other person, in a fit of jealousy, might curse us.”
Another believes it’s just the Mediterranean culture of the south. Whereas in the UK it is almost considered bad manners to say you’re ‘not bad’ even if you’re on your deathbed, here it’s the opposite. “We love that touch of martyrdom, of drama, of being the centre of attraction. When we meet someone new, we want to impress and leave an imprint – what better way of doing it than by being tragic?”
It is encouraging to know we’re not the only ones. Anthropologist Mark Anthony Falzon once wrote how Sicilians, too, ooze a pathos “that only native authors like Sciascia, Pirandello and Tomasi di Lampedusa could portray with such paradoxical gusto.
“The famous French historian Braudel had a word or two to say about this: For him, life on a Mediterranean island was (and still is, in some ways) a paragon of frugality, a constant struggle to eke a living out of arid soils and a scorching climate,” he said.
When someone asks us ‘kif int?’ we ought to force our mouths into a ‘tajjeb!’
There we have it; now we know why we are a nation of grouchers.
However, every now and then, unexpectedly, I find myself crossing paths with people who are the opposite of this. The word ‘moan’ and ‘carp’ is not even in their vocabulary. Invariably they’d be the ones who are seriously ill or going through a terrible trauma, and yet when you talk to them, even briefly, they simply make you happy and lift up your soul.
It happened last week. I met a doctor, in her 40s, who is undergoing chemotherapy to control a very aggressive cancer. I met her while she was at work. “Yes, of course I am still working. I reduced my hours to fit in my therapy and to make sure I am not stressed, but I’ll go on with my life,” she said cheerfully. “I enjoy my work. I want to keep on meeting sick people and make them better, this is what I love doing.”
And it was not because she was in denial. “I see this as a blessing because I have been given the time to wrap things up and do all the things I wanted to do in life but just kept postponing. I’ve been given the time to catch up on my bucket list and I’m going to do it fast.”
She told me this with so much energy and such smiling eyes that it made me happy about life, and I was grateful to her for being an inspiration in that snap of a moment.
It is odd how ugly turns in life are sometimes a silver lining. “It was the worst thing that happened to me, but if you know what I mean, it was the best thing that happened to me – because from that day on I became true to myself,” said a friend some time ago.
It was the international day of happiness last Friday. No one celebrates this; no chicken drum sticks vouchers, and no free make-up lessons. Great relief. But perhaps, for the rest of the week, when someone asks us ‘kif int?’ we ought to try and quash thoughts of cramps and cricks and force our mouths into a ‘tajjeb!’. And instead of the ‘insomma’ face, we could try crinkling our lips into a smile.
The pesky xerqa may still be there but we won’t even notice it, let alone talk about it, if we’re busy enjoying life.
krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @KrisChetcuti