Your friend introduces you to someone. Automatically, your right hand reaches out for an enthusiastic handshake. The other person leans in for a beso beso – a kiss on each cheek. Next thing you know, you’re pumping a fist full of oxygen, and they’re exchanging dainty kisses with thin air. Awkward.

Living in a multicultural city, you learn to choose your words with care and assess your verbal interactions with people, in order to respect and understand other cultures.

In greetings, you – perhaps subconsciously – decipher more about the individual and aspects of their culture through body language.

Body language consists of all the non-verbal cues we give when we interact with others. It involves anything from eye contact, facial expressions, gestures, patterns of touch, all the way to spatial arrangements between individuals.

In fact, according to research conducted by American professor Albert Mehrabian, only seven per cent of the message we give is conveyed through the words we use. The other 93 per cent is derived from our body language.

At the risk of channeling “Captain Obvious” or his better-looking, but perhaps slightly seedier counterpart, “Commander Generalization,” non-verbal communication varies among cultures. And it can be deeply rooted in that culture’s history, customs or social expectations.

In Inuit tradition, for example, the kunik involves breathing in or sniffing the scent of a person’s cheek, nose or forehead. Contrary to popular belief that the practice was developed to avoid mouths freezing together in a kiss, it is actually an affectionate greeting for friends and family.

In France – and many central and eastern European countries – acquaintances and friends kiss on both cheeks each time they meet and leave, while in Canada, handshakes are a common way of greeting a stranger or an acquaintance. Among friends and family though, a hug is a common greeting in Canada.

Some Canadians perceive greetings such as cheek kissing to be too intimate. Interestingly enough, other cultures, such as the French, consider hugs or embraces to be more intimate than a kiss on the cheek because of physical proximity to the other person.

Aireen Luney lives in Vancouver and has traveled to Europe many times on business. She notes that the differences in body language arise from cultural norms.

She observed that the acceptable spatial distance between people or the amount of personal space an individual needs varies among cultures, with North Americans requiring greater personal space than Europeans or Asians.

Similarly, Luney says that in some cultures, avoiding eye contact is a sign of respect. On the contrary, in other cultures, such as North America, eye contact conveys engagement and avoiding it could signal a lack of interest and attention, or could even be a sign of insincerity.

In China, and many other Asian countries, placing the palms together at chest level and bowing or nodding is a common greeting. The level of respect for the other person is conveyed through the depth and length of the bow, and the height of the palms.

Karan Suri, 27, is an Indo-Canadian who frequently meets and interacts with international clients in his work. He says that when he is greeted with a bow, it signals that the ensuing conversation or interaction will be approached with “respect [and a] willingness and openness to work together.”

He also notes that meeting in professional settings, individuals from Asia will typically present their business card with both hands.

Among some of the more interesting non-verbal acknowledgements is the Tibetan greeting. When Tibetans meet, they briefly stick their tongues out. Because Tibetans believe in reincarnation and fear the reincarnation of a particularly cruel Tibetan king who, ominously enough, sported a black tongue – likely to match his black heart – the greeting is a sign of openness and shows that they are not guilty of evil deeds. In North America, such a greeting is likely to be frowned upon, especially by mothers.

With varying types of non-verbal communication from country to country, it’s easy to see how misunderstandings can occur.

One famous anecdote tells the tale of former U.S. president Richard Nixon arriving in a foreign country, standing regally at the doorway of the presidential jet with a beaming crowd below him, he flashes the “peace” or victory sign…and is promptly met with a mix of jeers, guffaws, and stares.

Nixon didn’t realize that in that country, the sign is an offensive gesture, equivalent to using the middle finger.

Even within the same culture though, greeting patterns may vary depending on the individual’s age, social status or the context of the interaction.

Sandia Wu, a Taiwanese-Canadian who has lived in both Mexico and Vancouver, comments that Latinos are generally more affectionate in their greetings, giving a kiss on the cheek even when first meeting someone.

However, according to Wu, body language can also reflect a social hierarchy in Mexico, in that physical contact is not common among acquaintances of a different social status or between people in an employer/employee relationship.

Suri observes that there are some types of body language which are so well known and recognized in Canadian society that people can generalize where the individual is from, based on the greeting.

“If you saw someone greet someone else by putting their hands together and saying ‘Namaste’ you’d know they were from India,” says Suri. In multicultural Vancouver, the non-verbal clues in communication are everywhere. True, there are just as many cultural gaffes lurking in unforeseen social scenarios and waiting to be clumsily realized. But don’t keep that from introducing yourself to someone. Let’s shake on it. Or not.