Culture- or area-specific gestures (that you wish we'd adopt)

May 20, 2021 2:08 PM

Through traveling and various media, I've learned about some interesting gestures or local variations on universal gestures. I'm curious to learn about more and would love to hear about those you know of and their intricacies. For instance, I learned that in (at least some parts of) China, a light tap on the table indicates that someone should please pour their tea. But tapping can also be a general thanks, and perhaps one that indicates a status difference. It's complex and great! What are some more like this?

-Making a "come here" motion with the palm down has different connotations in some places than with the palm up (the former for people, the latter for animals).

-The Indian "head bob" or wiggle done continuously to indicate (among other things) attention and agreement is one that's useful but difficult to master.

-From a friend who visited Mongolia I learned of a curious, old-fashioned "flip and sniff" that's perhaps beyond the bounds of polite society but interesting nonetheless.

-Puffing one's cheeks out or tugging on the eye as an equivalent to eye-rolling (these I'm not so sure about).

-Differences in gesture-based sign language are also interesting - culturally specific signs that differ from others for common words or concepts.

-To widen the net a little bit, I'd like to include social gestures like for instance the "round system" of drinking in some countries vs getting one's drinks individually, or elsewhere, the practice of always pouring for others but not for yourself (status comes into play here too).

Things like this often indicate a unique way of thinking about interactions or people and some of them I wish would be adopted more widely. So I'd like to pile up more in my anecdote warehouse.

posted by BlackLeotardFront to Society & Culture (30 answers total)

I’m fond of the signature-in-the-air gesture while making eye context with the waiter to indicate that you’re ready for the check (America).
posted by mekily at 2:14 PM on May 20, 2021 [8 favorites]

Mekily, the "check please" gesture works throughout Europe and the Americas, and perhaps elsewhere.
posted by Mo Nickels at 2:29 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

In most parts of America (hell I do it in NYC), when a car stops for you in a crosswalk or let’s you go, you wave to them in a half thank you and half hand up to tell them to stop from running me over.
posted by sandmanwv at 2:46 PM on May 20, 2021 [14 favorites]

Hooray! I, too, love physical gestures from around the world! Here are some from my travels, with any error in understanding 100% on me:

Nepal:
- Scooping the hand around to end with an L-shape of pointer finger and thumb, while saying, "Ke garne?" The words mean, "What to do?" - the gesture is like an elegant facepalm alternative.
- When saying/expressing a feeling of "COMPLETELY NOT", both hands sweep down and out to the sides, fingers splayed. A great GTFU gesture.
- For Tibetans, when entering a temple or meeting a monk/nun/lama, ducking the head and sticking out your tongue as a sign of respect. Bonus gesture: in Orissa, India, sticking out the tongue a little is an expression of embarrassment/shame, and may stem from the story of Kali saving the world and then raging her divine rage until she realizes she's stepping on her sleeping husband - she's painted with her tongue out in the moment of that realization.
- Also for Tibetans, pointing with your lips. SO USEFUL

South Sudan, Eastern Equatoria, Toposa language/culture:
- Emphasizing a point by clasping your hands in front of your chest and snapping off your knuckles. "His bull was *SO* *BEAUTIFUL* you would not even believe."
- Also emphasizing a point, when making a speech: pointing with the L-shape first up and then DOWN at the ground. Do it with both hands for major points.
- Intensifying an adjective by tipping your head back, bringing your fist up to your mouth, and bringing head down/pulling fist away with fingers splayed as you say the adjective+intensifier ending. "Aw, man, it was *WICKED HOT* on the way to camp yesterday."
- The number five is a fist. The number ten is both fists banged together. The concept "together" can be expressed by saying "ten" and and bringing your fists together. "Where are my sisters? Oh, they went to the cattle camp [TEN]". Fun accessory gesture: the number 4 is shown as the "live long and prosper" symbol, because it shows how 4 is divided and 5 is together.

Around drinking culture, my Korean friends who were 1st-gen kids taught me that younger folks at the table pour soju for older folks, but that they don't pour for themselves. Tibetans sometimes dip a ring finger in their drink and flick the drop three times: I learned it as for the gods, the demons, and the human realm, but this article suggests at least some people see it as more pious than that. ^_^

I don't have a source right now, but in college read some ancient ethologists' assertion that touching/scratching the head is common around the world for deep thinking/confusion.

Speak Italian, by Bruno Minari, is a delightful piece of design on this issue.
posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 2:54 PM on May 20, 2021 [7 favorites]

Response by poster: These are great so far, just what I was looking for.

I'll add one I just remembered. In Japan (and probably elsewhere) the "X" sign is for general negation. It can be made small and polite, by crossing the index fingers — this was how my brother and I were rejected from no-foreigners restaurants, a tiny x and the English word "closed" despite obviously being open (no hard feelings, it became a joke for us). I also saw it used to indicate something wasn't available, for a personal negation (e.g. "oh no, not me") and for emphatic rejection (banging wrists together in a large x at head level).

Oh, as for driving and avoiding getting hit, I noticed in China that drivers stopped or slowed when pedestrians made eye contact, but if the pedestrian looked behind the car (presumably to make eye contact with the next one) they drive on. Maybe that's too minor but I didn't notice it happening in other places.

Pointing with the lips sounds amazing, my god! Next to tapping thanks (by the way, if anyone knows more about this, please share) this sounds the most universally useful. 3rd place is head bob.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 3:24 PM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]

I was told pointing was considered rude on the Navajo Nation. They too point with their lips, make sand paintings, and have a Matrilineal society. (Tibetan memes, sorta.)
posted by Oyéah at 4:31 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

Pointing with your lips is also a thing in Filipino culture. Literally got laughed at to our faces when we started doing it here in Canada though, so I trained myself out of doing it.
posted by tinydancer at 4:38 PM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]

One I learned in Bolivia: a hand held up palm facing side ways- fingers spread and slightly bent, rotating back and forth (like a royal wave but faster) means "there isn't any"

Also a Bolivia one: shaking hand like you've been slapped on the back of the hand - often tied with a grimace, means something like awkward! Oof, etc. Used to show shame, often when a child gets in trouble.
posted by freethefeet at 5:17 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

In Ireland, "I will, yeah" means you absolutely will not.

In the UK, if you quite like something, you don't really like it. In the US, you like it a lot.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:24 PM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]

Back home on the Hi-Line in Montana, it’s polite to signal with a finger or two at drivers in the opposite land on the road.
posted by Ideefixe at 6:12 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

>-Making a "come here" motion with the palm down has different connotations in some places than with the palm up (the former for people, the latter for animals)

Totally a thing in Thailand, VERY rude to try to hail a taxi with palm up. To this day I still do it the Thai way, which sometimes fails in New York.
posted by cyndigo at 6:16 PM on May 20, 2021

A couple of Montana things:

If you want to buy a round of drinks for the table, you catch the bartender's attention and hold one finger up and move it in a circular motion. (That may be more universal?)

If you are hiking up a trail and a mountain biker is coming down, they will hold up a number of fingers to indicate how many more mountain bikers are behind them.

The two-finger wave on lonely two-lane or gravel roads. It's just raising two fingers off the steering wheel to say, "Howdy" and acknowledge the other driver as they pass by you in the opposite direction. It probably comes from the time when we were a more rural, less-populous state and you wanted to be friendly. The joke is that you don't want to take a full hand off the steering wheel to wave because the roads are so damn bad.

(On review, ideefixe mentioned this too. Montana is small enough that we've probably done this driving by each other.)
posted by ITravelMontana at 6:17 PM on May 20, 2021 [2 favorites]

My parents and their friends did the one- or two-finger wave in rural New York.

On San Juan Island in Washington, pedestrians and drivers wave at one another whether or not you know them. It's considered rude not to respond to the wave.
posted by jgirl at 7:12 PM on May 20, 2021

"I’m fond of the signature-in-the-air gesture while making eye context with the waiter to indicate that you’re ready for the check (America)"

/ I worked in restaurants for over half a decade on and off and never knew another server who didn't also find it rude. I get why guests do it, but it makes us feel like monkeys. Just make eye contact. I'll get to you.
posted by europeandaughter at 7:17 PM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]

Pointing with the lips is a Dine/Navajo thing, most definitely, but other Native American groups also use the gesture. I don't know how accurate this article is but there's a number of pictures and a video if if you want to see it in use.

Definitely something that non-natives in places with a significant native population tend to pick up as well. It's very handy to be able to point at something when your hands are full.

The steering wheel wave is known across the rural United States.

You might find the concept of "home sign" interesting, of course there are more formal signed languages such as ASL, but people need to be exposed to a language to learn it. Deaf people who don't have this language exposure often develop a system of signs to use in their family, or in some places where there is a geographic concentration of deafness the whole community may adopt a system of signs that starts to approach a language.

There are also gestures with very specific and codified meanings in certain settings, for example on aircraft carriers.
posted by yohko at 7:20 PM on May 20, 2021

In Durban, people hail minibus taxis with specific hand gestures to indicate which route they require. I don't remember them all, but there's a finger pointing up to indicate "Point Road" and a wavy gesture to indicate the beachfront. There is no equivalent in Cape Town taxi hailing, but maybe Joburg has something similar.
posted by Zumbador at 9:21 PM on May 20, 2021

Re: tapping your fingers, the story I got as a kid pretty much matches the wikipedia synopsis, that an emperor was traveling in disguise as a servant and his entourage needed a way to acknowledge him without blowing his cover.

HOWEVER, it is not a request for more tea, just a gesture of thanks. If you are having tea with Chinese people, you should never need to request more tea. Someone will always fill your cup if it looks like it's getting low because it's rude to pour for yourself without serving everyone else first (and you'd be doing the same for them).

On a related note, if you finish the pot of tea, propping the lid ajar (or setting it on the handle) signals the waitstaff to bring you a fresh one.
posted by yeahlikethat at 10:01 PM on May 20, 2021 [1 favorite]

Japan: hand flat, waggle behind you like a wave up and down: 'follow me' as you would with a crooked finger to beckon in (at least) the UK.

Motor(bike|cycle) riders waving hello to each other: in the UK, left palm up front above the bars. In the US, typically it's out to the side in a V sign pointing sideways (though there are variants). In France, I'm told you waggle your left foot.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 10:18 PM on May 20, 2021

I was about to post what yeah likethat said :) I live in a part of China where it is common to do the tea thank you gesture, and he is absolutely right about the meaning.

Something else common in China is when people mention a number, there are hand gesture associated with it (at least for numers 1-10). I find middle aged people almost always do the hand gesture when saying a number, and younger people do as well though some do, some don't. It's sort of an extension of how people in America signal "1 2 3 4 5" but extend to 10, all doable with one hand (well, except for 10, where you make a cross with your two index fingers, though there's probably a one handed version used in some parts of china or something)

Also the eye contact with car thing varies heavily. In more car centric or larger cities, you will absolutely get run over if you do that.

Oh I mean, another gesture (though not one that I necessarily think we need to replicate) is that if you touch classes with someone (in China it's very common to sort of drink, liquor or otherwise, in 1:1 pairs), the lip of your cup being below the lip of their cup is a show of respect. Especially when drinking alcohol, you usually wouldn't just drink alone...you'd turn to someone and be like "hey let's drink together!" There is a lot more ritual to it than this, but at this point you touch glasses and you'd both sort of move the glasses downwards, until eventually one person's glass rests lower than the other. As with most things like this, when there are clear hierarchies, the person in the "superior" position will make a polite gesture to move their glass downward, but then let the other person lower their glass more. But sometimes when it's not clear (especially if people are drunk) then people will go comically low. Once at a wedding in rural China (where the middle aged men will drink you under the table 100 times over), someone wanted to do a shot with me, and I was dead set on being lower...so we literally didn't just hit the table, we went all the way to the ground lol. Drinking here has a lot of ritual associated with it (as it does in many (most?) places!).
posted by wooh at 11:51 PM on May 20, 2021 [3 favorites]

As among Montana car drivers, raising a single "I acknowledge your existence" finger from the wheel is required in rural Ireland. Never seen in England. Known neighbours get a small chin-lift.
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:19 AM on May 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

Never seen in England.

Not quite true, though you might have to get deep into rural England to find it. Bill Bryson called it the Malhamdale Wave after moving to Yorkshire:

“But gradually, little by little, they find a corner for you in their hearts, and begin to acknowledge you when they drive past with what I call the Malhamdale wave. This is an exciting day in the life of any new arrival. To make the Malhamdale wave, pretend for a moment that you are grasping a steering wheel. Now very slowly extend the index finger of your right hand as if you were having a small involuntary spasm. That’s it. It doesn’t look like much, but it speaks volumes, believe me…”
posted by vincebowdren at 3:07 AM on May 21, 2021 [1 favorite]

I have had very different responses to smiling broadly while making eye contact as a customer. In the US, it seems to be standard, neutral behaviour. In the UK, it means you are very polite, a 'nice person'. In Germany, it is suspicious and off-putting to be so friendly to someone you don't know. In Pakistan, it's flirtatious.
posted by guessthis at 3:52 AM on May 21, 2021 [2 favorites]

When I was part of a multinational team, when my British colleagues and I would clap, our German colleagues used to knock on the table instead. I'd be happy to see that spread. It's a gentler sound somehow, as well as not requiring that you have both hands free. Does require the presence of a table, mind!

I never actually asked any of them about it, but the internet suggests that it's an academic tradition.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 6:36 AM on May 21, 2021

In Japan, you do not gesture "come here" with your palm up and a crooked index finger; you gesture with your palm down and flexing all your fingers a couple of times (this explains what all those "lucky cat", or literally "beckoning cat" statues are doing with their paws) . Also, I learned you can gesture "he's an idiot" by tugging at the skin below one eye with an index finger, but maybe that was peculiar to my group of friends.
posted by adamrice at 8:42 AM on May 21, 2021

In the UK, making the V sign with the back of your fingers facing the other person is an insult (probably a step below flipping just your middle finger in terms of offence level). Turn it round so the palm is facing the other person and it's the Churchill victory V sign. I was thinking about this just the other day - I'm curious to know if there's anywhere else that the reverse version is offensive? The Oxford Reference suggests it's British only, probably only 20th century, and possibly in the process of being usurped by the importation of the American single finger. It was always fun to use as a kid because you could also stick your tongue out between the two fingers for added rudeness. I think it's use is deeply ingrained at some level in my brain, beacause even though I've not used it for decades, I'm pretty sure I found myself doing it at a particularly rude, unhelpful workman who was being unecessarly obstructive to me in the street recently.

The explanation you get told as a kid - that it was all to do with the Battle of Agincourt - is apparently just a myth, but nobody really seems to know where it actually comes from. (That is: "The myth is that the French had threatened to cut off the index and middle fingers of any archers they captured. But since the English won, the archers then stuck up these two fingers to show they still had them.")
posted by penguin pie at 10:16 AM on May 21, 2021

re: the tea thank you - my dad traveled in China and told me that you tap twice for "xie xie" (thank you). You can also tap someone's hand as they light your cigarette. He also told me that it's rude to pour tea for yourself as a visitor because it implies your host is being inattentive. To wave goodbye, you hold up your hand palm out and flap it forward and back, which I like better than the usual sideways wave, especially if you're in a group and might thwack someone.

The palm-in V-sign would definitely read as offensive in context to this USian, although I'd more commonly expect it to be with the fingers together and a quick upward movement (up yours!).

I thought putting your finger to your nose to indicate "not it" was common in the US, but results in Zooms have been mixed.
posted by momus_window at 12:49 PM on May 21, 2021

Here in Belgium putting your pinky finger up - as in, make a fist facing skyward and extend your pinky - is a way to signal that you'd like a "pintje", basically the pils that the bar has on tap.
And if it's a particularly noisy bar, you can hold up the number of beers you want, and then your pinky, and get your beers without having to shout at the bartender, which is very nice.
posted by Karmeliet at 12:54 AM on May 22, 2021

In certain areas of New Zealand, there is a greeting known as the "East Coast wave" (demonstrated in that video by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern). It was recommended for adoption during the COVID lockdown because other greetings don't support social distancing.
posted by rednikki at 6:26 AM on May 22, 2021

Massachusetts, ages ago: do the thumb-and-index "small" sign to indicate to hitchhikers that you're going only a little bit further and that's why you're not picking them up. (I don't remember if there was a way for hitchhikers to sign back "well, a short ride is better than no ride at all," but suspect there wasn't.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:54 AM on June 1, 2021

The corpse in the library, I had someone who used to hitchhike explain that gesture to me at one point, and I'd considered including it in my answer but I'd never come across anyone else using or referring to the gesture. I'm glad to have a geographical reference for it!
posted by yohko at 12:12 PM on June 5, 2021 [1 favorite]