Whether it is safe to shake hands amid the coronavirus outbreak is a sensitive topic across Europe. It's an especially big deal in Germany.
That is the question bedeviling billions around the world as the coronavirus spreads nefariously from continent to continent. Whether it’s still safe to shake hands in the age of the pandemic is an especially touchy issue in Germany and across Europe, where the handshake custom is thought to have originated more than 2,000 years ago and it’s arguably more commonplace than anywhere else.
“Germany is among the countries with the best possible conditions to deal with this virus,” she said, just hours after Berlin organizers announced that the world’s biggest travel convention, the March 4-8 ITB in Berlin, was being canceled even though 160,000 people from around the world were expected.
Whatever the origins of the gesture now considered a polite and almost essential way to greet someone in many Western cultures, it is the ubiquitous manner Germans of essentially all ages introduce themselves. It’s customary for Germans to shake hands when they meet someone for the first time, as is the case in many other countries.
To decline an invitation to shake an outstretched hand is considered a serious insult in Germany — and The coach of German professional soccer team TSV 1860 Muenchen, Michael Koellner, said last week that he and his players would no longer shake hands with one another or opposing teams before and after games and hoped the entire Bundesliga professional league would follow suit.
Handshakes are considered a Western custom in many Asian countries and so, aside from handshake-filled business meetings, the issue may not be as pressing. Bowing at a 45-degree angle is considered the polite salutation in Japan while bows or nods without physical contact are sufficient in South Korea, Taiwan and elsewhere. There is also a Chinese greeting that involves making a fist with one hand and using the other hand to cup it.
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