part 353 whalers on the moon

[aphanon_meme]

We've been here over a year now! I can hardly believe it! Dreamwidth's been pretty good, I'd say, with almost no downtime to speak of and all that! Anyway... how is your spring going? Or I guess it's almost summer, isn't it? Hopefully it's been well! I've been catching up on work and new movies, all very exciting stuff, I'm sure.

Enjoy part 353!

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Comments

http://westsidetoastmasters.com/resources/book_of_body_language/chap5.html

[(Anonymous)]

Non-American memers(or well-travelled/culturally aware Merrycans,) are the hand signal meanings and other cultural gestures and such accurate as far as you know? It seems pretty funny to me that the OK signal would be like a stretched open asshole in some countries.

Re: http://westsidetoastmasters.com/resources/book_of_body_language/chap5.html

[(Anonymous)]

Is there supposed to be two hands in O or why the hell would that mean ten or surrendering?

As far as I know they seem correct-ish, quite narrow definitions though. Like K definitely is an insult outside the US and ancient Rome.

Re: http://westsidetoastmasters.com/resources/book_of_body_language/chap5.html

[zeetee]

I should be in bed but I want to share this story of mistaken hand gestures and angry greeks

Letter G is not kidding, putting your hand up, palm out, and pushing it forward indicates to a Greek that you want them to go to hell.

Anyhow: an American friend of my friend was staying in Greece and decided to pop down to the post office. He was shaky on the language so he tried to be clear: He said "I want ten stamps!" while holding up both hands to indicate the number. He even pushed them back and forth for extra clarity and emphasis.

The post office worker vaulted over the desk and nearly attacked him for basically giving him double middle fingers. Be careful with your international rude gestures, people!

Re: http://westsidetoastmasters.com/resources/book_of_body_language/chap5.html

[(Anonymous)]

It seems pretty funny to me that the stretched asshole signal would be like an OK sign in some countries.

In other words, yes, that's a vulgar gesture in some places. But there are better charts out there than this one.

Re: http://westsidetoastmasters.com/resources/book_of_body_language/chap5.html

[quandtuniverse]

You know, I keep seeing the "ok sign is actually insulting in Brazil!!" in travel guides all the time, but I have never, ever seen any Brazilians use it as an insult, or take it as an insult for that matter.

When Brazilians want to insult each other they use middle fingers like 99% of the time, the remaining 1% being the "banana" sign.

However, we don't use the "OK" symbol much at all. The most common way to express "OK" is with a thumbs-up.

Re: http://westsidetoastmasters.com/resources/book_of_body_language/chap5.html

[desuraven]

Except for the OK sign for money I've literally never come across any of the other hand signs in Japan. In fact I was surprised they didn't attempt to give a Japanese meaning to the V sign, though even I am struggling to come up with a word for it to be fair lol. iirc Japanese count like Europeans too, starting with the thumb for one.

idk even if those other hand signs do or did have those meanings, Japan is not a very gesture heavy country it's entirely possible they're all old fashioned and not used anymore.