What's A-O.K. in the
U.S.A. Is Lewd and Worthless Beyond
Published: August 18, 1996
·
The opening session of Bangladesh's new Parliament turned into
chaos Sunday after opposition legislators reacted with fury to an alleged
offensive thumb gesture by Shipping Minister A.S.M. Abdur Rab. The gesture is considered a grave insult in
Bangladesh. ''This is a dishonor not
only to Parliament but to the nation,'' said the deputy leader of the
opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Badruddoza Chowdhury. ''The minister must apologize for his showing
of the thumb. And the speaker must must ask the minister to do so,'' he said
amid shouting from his party colleagues.
WHAT had the shipping minister done to provoke such wrath? He gave the
old thumbs-up.
While in the United States, that's just a friendly sign for ''All
right!'' or ''Good going!'' in Bangladesh, Australia and other parts of the
world, particularly in Islamic countries, that jaunty gesture is the exact
equivalent of an upraised middle finger. Yes, it is what is known to
generations of high school students as ''flipping the bird.'' That may explain why one American newspaper
correspondent's interviews with the random Islamic men on the street inevitably
ended with the men furious. The correspondent wound up all of his interviews
with a clap on the back, a big grin and a hearty thumbs up. The
thumbs-up is not the only gesture whose meaning an American innocent abroad
could mistake. There is a huge array of cross-cultural gaffes to be made. Here
are some examples, excerpted from ''Gestures: The Do's and Taboos of Body
Language Around the World,'' by Roger E. Axtell (1991, reprinted by permission
of the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.). JOHN KIFNER
The A-O.K. The ''A-O.K.'' sign, with
the thumb and index finger joined in a circle, has insulting and scatological
connotations in many Latin American countries. So, when then Vice President
Richard M. Nixon, who always had a certain grace problem, landed on one of his
trips south of the border in the 1950's and emerged to greet a crowd with both
hands up in a double ''A-O.K.,'' he was, in effect, telling the welcomers to --
well, you get the picture.
The A-O.K. does no better
elsewhere: A Frenchman,
particularly in the South of France, would read that very same gesture as
meaning ''zero'' or ''worthless.'' I once took a hotel room in France and when
the concierge asked ''Is your room satisfactory?'' I replied with the ''O.K.''
sign. With a shrug of irritation, the concierge said, ''If you don't like it,
we'll just have to find you another room.''
In Japan, the thumb and forefinger making a circle is used as symbol for
money . . .
Because of this use, the gesture could have serious consequences
when incorrectly used. Imagine a Western businessperson who has negotiated a
contract with a Japanese and, at the conclusion, casually makes the O.K. sign .
. . The Japanese might say to himself ''Oh! he's giving me the sign for
'money.' . . . Is he asking for a bribe?''
Patting a Child's Head In India, Sri Lanka and
Thailand, patting a child on the head would be shocking and offensive because
the head is believed to be the seat of the soul.
'V' for Victory You think it means
''victory'' or ''peace.'' But that isn't all it means in England: There, if the palm and fingers face inward,
it means 'Up yours!' especially if executed with an upward jerk of the fingers. There may be a connection between the two
meanings that dates back 500 years, when the French used to cut off the middle
finger and forefinger of the English archers they captured in battle: After the battles of Agincourt and Crecy, so
the story goes, where the French were heavily defeated by the expert English
archers, the surviving French were marched off the battlefield to the taunts of
the victorious English. The English added further insult to the French by
holding up their hands, forefinger and middle finger stiffly upright, palms
inward, to show both fingers fully intact.
The 'Hook 'Em 'Horns' Sign The ''hook 'em 'Horns''
sign, two outside fingers with the pinky and index finger raised up and the
middle two fingers folded down, may be beloved of fans of the University of
Texas football team, the Longhorns, and it is a good luck gesture in Brazil and
Venezuela. Upsidedown, it is used in American baseball to signify ''two outs.''
But in parts of Africa it is a curse. It is not much appreciated in Italy
either:
For millions of Italians it is the cornuto, and it signifies an
entirely different meaning. It says, ''You are being cuckolded.'' In more
kindly terms, one person is signaling to the other that ''Your spouse is being
unfaithful.''
Oh, Waiter!Here the
gesture for hailing a waiter is one arm halfway up in the air, sometimes with
the index finger slightly raised. But in Japan that is rude. And in Germany it
may bring more than you bargained for: In
places like Germany, the signal . . . means ''two,'' because two fingers (one
finger and a thumb) are being held upright. So an American might be signaling
in this fashion and then saying ''Waiter -- some water, please,'' and a German
waiter would bring two glasses of water.To order one glass, try the thumbs-up.
Finger Beckoning In certain places,
scratching the air, hissing and even making kissing noises may be preferable to
using another common American gesture, curling the index finger in and out, to
beckon a waiter:In countries as widespread as Yugoslavia and Malaysia, that
gesture is used only for calling animals. Therefore, using it to beckon a human
would be terribly impolite.In Indonesia and Australia, it is also used for
beckoning ''ladies of the night.''
Tapping Head With
Forefinger It means
''smart'' here. In Holland, if the
finger is tapped to the center of the forehead, it means ''he's crazy.''
He's Crazy Rotating the forefinger
around in front of the ear has two entirely different meanings. In the United
States it usually connotes that someone or something is ''crazy.'' In
Argentina, it can be a signal to indicate ''you have a telephone call.''
Stop Here we know it as the
signal for ''Stop!'' or ''That's enough.'' In Greece, it is called the Moutza,
or hand push, and it has filthy roots: The moutza reaches back into ancient
Greek history when fecal matter and dirt were hurled or pushed into the face of
war prisoners. . . . And in West Africa this gesture means ''You could have any
one of five fathers!'' which is another way of calling a person a bastard.
Hands in Pockets If you think
you can save yourself a load of trouble by simply shoving your hands in your
pockets, think again: Keeping one's
hands in one's pockets when conversing in either social or business situations
is considered an impolite posture in such diverse locales as Belgium,
Indonesia, France, Finland, Japan and Sweden.
