(subdued techno music)
- If you're traveling to a foreign country,
don't let the language intimidate you.
Words only comprise seven to 35 percent
of human communiction.
The rest comes via body language,
gestures, posture, facial expressions,
proximity, and touch.
What you should be thinking about
are local hand gestures.
Many gestures that are innocuous or positive
in one country, can be insulting
or obscene in another.
So before you finish packing your bags,
check these out.
The middle finger.
The most offensive gesture in America
is flipping someone off,
shooting the bird,
giving them the finger.
The gesture means screw you, bug off.
You can make the sign calmly,
or you can angrily extend your arm
toward the intended recipient,
depending upon how upset you actually are.
In the past the gesture was a bit shocking to see.
Not so much any more.
And as anyone living in America knows,
you'll see an impressive, or dismaying,
assortment of people using it.
From prominent politicians to movie stars.
The A-OK.
Is everything all right?
In America you might respond to such a question
by flashing the A-OK sign.
This gesture is also widely used in the diving world
to both ask if a diver is fine,
and for the diver to respond back that she is.
Don't make this gesture in Brazil, however,
where it's akin to giving someone the finger.
In Greece and Turkey it's also seen as quite vulgar
and insinuates the person to whom it's given
is a homosexual.
In some Middle Eastern countries,
the A-OK is the symbol for the evil eye.
Perhaps the worst misuse
of this sign in recent history
was committed by then-Vice President
Richard Milhous Nixon in the 1950's.
The VP emerged from his plane in Brazil,
made an A-OK sign with each hand,
and enthusiastically wagged them
to the assembled crowd.
Not surprisingly, the people were astounded
and infuriated at this double insult.
The fig.
It's such a fun game to play
with babies and tots.
Your thumb, of course, is supposedly
the baby's nose.
While this game is common in the United States.
Australia, and Canada, it's never played in Turkey.
In that country, the hand gesture
commonly known as the fig
is like calling someone an unprintable name.
It's also insulting to people in Indonesia,
Italy, India, China, and Russia.
The gesture hails back to ancient times,
when the Romans used it to indicate sexual union.
In a positive manner, that is,
to wish someone good luck and fertility.
It also was seen as a protective measure
against the evil eye.
The Romans called the gesture mano fico,
or fig hand, as they felt the thumb and fist
looked like a woman's private parts.
Fica is Italian for fig and also slang for vulva.
Romans equated figs with female fertility.
The gesture is also the same used
for the letter T in American Sign Language.
Oops.
The crossed fingers.
When you want to wish someone good luck
you'll often tell them, I'll keep my fingers crossed,
that they'd get the promotion
or pregnant, or win the lottery.
If you really want to wish someone good luck
you might tell them you'll cross all your fingers
and your toes, too.
That is, if you live in the United States,
Canada, the UK, or Australia.
If you happen to be a resident of Viet Nam,
however, you'll view crossed fingers
as a vulgar symbol for female genitalia.
Even worse is if another person
crosses his fingers just for or at you.
Then it's an especially shocking and horrid offense.
The forearm jerk.
Think of the European forearm jerk as the
big brother of the American middle finger.
Southern European males, including those
in France, who call it the bras d'honneur,
use the forearm jerk as a crude, phallic way
to flip someone the bird.
It can also indicate sentiments such as
I'm better than you are,
Get lost, loser,
or Up yours buddy.
The cutis.
Primarily used in India and Pakistan,
once you make the gesture
you then flick your thumb our of your mouth
while crying out, cutta!
Which is screw you.
This gesture is not only an insult to you
buy to your entire family,
sort of like saying, you and your family
all kind of suck.
The thumbs up.
As far as traveling gestures go,
the thumbs up gets a thumbs down.
In the U.S, it means something like Great,
I like it, All right, or Ayyyyy.
But in other places it's offensive.
On the middle east for example,
it means Up your butt, fella.
Many Latin Americans find it offensive
as do citizens of west Africa, Greece, Russia,
Sardinia, the south of Italy, Australia,
the Philippines, and many Islamic nations.
That's a lot of thumbs up haters.
Scholars believe it originated in ancient Rome,
when crowds used the thumbs up sign to mean
a gladiator should be speared
or hid their thumbs if he should be spared.
If you simply can't stop using this sign,
know that you'll be all right in Germany
and certain areas of Japan,
where the thumbs up sign
simply indicates the number one.
Those are some of the commonly misunderstood
obscene hand gestures, but not all of them.
Before you head out on your next
international adventure, be sure to learn the rest
in our article on HowStuffWorks.com.
Also, thanks to Alkaloid Networks for allowing us
to desecrate your conference room.
You're A-OK.
Thumbs up.
- The butt.
(laughter)
- What is the word for an adult who doesn't
have dinosaur toys in their bedroom?
(laughter)
What was that?
- Monica knows.