70 Japanese Gestures, Hamiru-aqui (365 Books, Day 261)

[rushthatspeaks]

Exactly what it says it is: seventy hand gestures used in Japan, ranging from common to rare and from polite to extremely rude, with explanatory photographs, the Japanese phrase for the gesture, the circumstances in which it is used, and a jab at placing the relative politeness level of each one.

I had picked up a surprising number of these from various manga, anime, and films, including-- and this surprised me-- some I had not known I had picked up. There were a couple I just looked at and went 'well of course that means that what else would it mean'. Including the one for indicating not-terribly-politely that somebody is gay, which I am not sure how to feel about subliminally knowing. (I am not going to attempt to describe it because it's one of those gestures where I could write a very detailed description which would not help one tenth as much as a good photo; I don't think it's obvious what it means unless you know, though.) Now I am wondering how I learned it.

These are well explained and well photographed. This could be a very useful book for a tourist, especially since it has the gesture that people will use when they don't speak the tourist's language/don't know something-- an upright hand shaken near the mouth, with the thumb closest to the face, sometimes with the head shaking in the opposite direction. I did manage to figure this one out when I was a tourist, but I think it was a little embarrassing for everybody until I did, because it really does mean 'this person does not want to talk to you and you should go bother somebody else'.

So a fun little book, which also seems to do pretty well on telling you whether a given gesture is too rude to use, really too rude to use, or Right Out. If you need information on Japanese gestures, this is a good place to find it.

Comments

[issen4.livejournal.com]

Does it include what I call the "Ultraman" gesture, ie. crossed forearms in front of the face? It's one my boss uses when he wants to emphasise a negative ("Issen-san, NO lesson on Friday!), and I was wondering if it's something used in Japan or just a case of real life imitating art.

[genarti]

A couple of my language teachers have done that to emphasize a negative too, when they're explaining that some phrasing isn't grammatical or is grammatical but just not used that way -- I associate it with "Sore wa dame da yo" and similar. And, from one particularly extroverted teacher, a bzzt, wrong! sort of sound effect.

For whatever that's worth!

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

I think I've seen that used in real life. My brother and I were in a store and tried to ask various things in limited Japanese and in gestures. At one point we wanted to take picture of DVD covers, and the salesperson made an X with his forearms to indicate "no".

[issen4.livejournal.com]

So other Japanese people use it too! That's surprisingly hilarious. Maybe they all watched Ultraman when they were kids.

[sovay]

the gesture that people will use when they don't speak the tourist's language/don't know something-- an upright hand shaken near the mouth, with the thumb closest to the face, sometimes with the head shaking in the opposite direction. I did manage to figure this one out when I was a tourist, but I think it was a little embarrassing for everybody until I did, because it really does mean 'this person does not want to talk to you and you should go bother somebody else'.

That is the sort of thing I'd like to know before visiting a country, yeah.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

We have had this book for several years, but have gone back and forth about whether it was serious or funny. There were gestures we recognized from watching film and anime, and then there were gestures in the slang section that seemed so improbable that we wanted to find a native speaker and gesturer to ask. Naturally, when we had such an opportunity, there were way more things to talk about than this particular book, so we never got around to it.

I like it that the model is a serious, ordinary, middle-aged Japanese man in a suit, even when illustrating gestures made only by children. This is what made us wonder if the book was meant to be funny; even if the book is completely straightforward in defining the gestures, I think the illustrations are meant to be witty, and they are.