Etiquette for Polar Bears

When you overeat, you should not open the top buttons of your trousers, and women should not unzip their dresses.

This sensible but somewhat unusual advice is one of hundreds of hints contained in a little book of etiquette that is currently a bestseller in Russia and Eastern Europe. Published as Man Among Men in Czechoslovakia, in the other Communist countries it goes under the less subtle title of How to Be have. The first and only socialist book of manners, it contains a refresher course in gentility for the comrades, who have long been taught as part of Communist dogma to regard all high manners as decadent. Its author is a Prague psychiatrist, Milena Majorova, who reminds her readers at the outset that "human beings are not polar bears --they are not satisfied with merely a female of the species and enough food."

Mme. Majorova leaves little to the imagination in outlining how the proletariat should act at home, in offices, restaurants, trains and even on luxury liners. "Don't yawn when you are bored," she urges. "Just say politely, 'Sorry, this subject is so distant from me that I do not follow your argument.' " As for loud belching, that is "the peak of tactlessness--but if you do it, say quietly 'Pardon me' and don't go into further detail on how it happened." Though she lives in a country where bourgeois dress was long shunned in favor of workers' baggy overalls, Mme. Majorova comes out for the old standards, including shirt and tie. "It is the height of bad manners," she adds, "to take off your shoes in front of your secretary."

Comrade Majorova is also concerned about some of the polar bears who turn up on crowded Czech trams and in train compartments. "People in dirty work clothes should not get on public transport, because they will soil other people's clothes," she writes. "In the train, don't fall asleep on a stranger's knee." Nor should comradely formalities be overdone. Don't, for instance, shout the reverent Communist greeting, "Honor to labor!" to a friend who is sunbathing on the beach: such enthusiasm, she warns, "could appear ironic." More important, when greeting a woman, kiss her hand and address her as "Madame" rather than call her comrade and raise a clenched fist in a party salute. Reflecting Communism's cramped living quarters and flimsy walls, the Red Emily Post also advises: "Try not to hiccup." Why? "You will disturb the neighbors."

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