| Quick! Smile While You Still Can! | The Globe & Mail - October 14, 2003 | |
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You'd better flash those pearly whites now, because time is running out. This country's smile amnesty ends soon, after which your toothsome grin will no longer welcome at the Canada Passport Office.
In compliance with the International Civil Aviation Organization, Canada recently decreed that come November 15th, its citizens may not crack a smile when posing for passport photos. You may wear your hairpiece, you may wear your glasses (unless they're of the eye-hiding shady sort), and you may even wear your turban, but you most definitely may not wear your smile. Given the current rage for whitening one's chicklets to a dazzling brilliance, this decree could not have been more ill-timed, though one has to wonder if it was mere coincidence that the passport police waited until after National Smile Week, -the second week in August, to announce the ban on smiles. With passport pictures already included in the same category of ugliness as driver's licence photos (you know...if you actually look as bad as your passport photo, then you really do need a vacation), will things only get worse now that they've wiped the smile off our faces? A closed-mouth, straight-ahead gaze with neutral expressions is all issuees are to be permitted. Never mind that with seventeen muscles involved verses forty-three, it's easier to smile than frown; frowning's not technically allowed either. Apparently a neutral visage makes it easier for security personnel to discern if that person standing before them really is you. In truth this favoring of a poker face may be wise, after all as any vixen knows, a smile is not always the innocent, saccharine sign of happiness it seems. It can be beguiling, distracting, disarming and, let's face it, downright venomous. While Mother Teresa may have been of the opinion that peace begins with a smile, we'd be wise to heed Hamlet's words: “One may smile and smile, and be a villain.” Knowing that with some species baring the teeth is a sign of aggression; one can't help but wonder what evil lurks beneath some seemingly friendly façades. Indeed there are those among us who are rather too quick with a smile, and still others who invite suspicion precisely because they wear one constantly. Perhaps it as writer Robert Bloch so cynically suggested; some are able to smile when things go wrong because they have already thought of someone else to blame in on. Yet not everyone is so mistrusting of our grinning gobs. There are folks, (those annoying perky types who are forever telling complete strangers to “Smile”), who envision the world as a far rosier world if everyone just plaster a smile on their face. In fact, officials at a hospital in China truly believe smiles smooth the way and have therefore ordered staff to smile widely at patients, each 1000-watt grin exposing at least eight teeth. Claiming that complaints against hospital staff have ceased since the eight-tooth smile rule took effect, one hospital official enthused that a toothsome greeting is “a vivid metaphor for better service.” Similarly, the Singapore Kindness Movement, a government-sanctioned organization striving to build a more gracious society, once held a month-long courtesy campaign during which retail sales staff in Singapore were required to greet customers with a smile. Meanwhile back in Canada, one has to wonder what will happen once the ban on smiles takes affect. Will we now be forced to wander through airports with perpetually melancholy mugs, so that our faces match our i.d.? Will we loose our international reputation for friendliness? Please, tell me this will not drive us to more frequent use of those inane little smiley faces :) and other cutesy emotives that have already invaded our on-line conversations. Perhaps in the interest of national security (and if we wish to wing off somewhere with travel documents in hand) we should comply with the surly Passport Office decree, but then simply redouble our efforts to smile everywhere else. We should, presuming our collective dental hygiene is up to snuff, all proudly flash our pearly whites in an effusive effort to prove that despite what our passports may say, we are friendly Canadians and damn it we have the smiles to prove it. |