Secrets Behind Japanese Gestures

By JACK SEWARD

With a new year arriving just weeks away, it's a certainty that a large number of new arrivals to Japan are beginnxing the endless task of coping with what we've come to call Things Japanese. One thing is sure for newcomers: You will have a communications problem. Just how serious this problem will be depends upon where you go, how long you stay and whether or not you travel with a Japanese-speaking friend. But no matter what you do, you will have this problem at least to some extent.

What should be done? Give up hopes of enjoying your stay in Japan? Not a bit; Japan is a marvelous experience. With about 7 percent of the Japanese population knowing enough English to lend a linguistic hand to a forlorn foreigner, you'll sooner or later find one of them to help you solve your problem, although you may meet several blank looks before you reach that one person in 14 you are seeking.

What can you do in the beginning? Use some gestures.

Fine, you say, and you begin reviewing those gestures we've all used since childhood: thumbs up, thumbs down, "V" for Victory, middle finger in the air, clenched fist, AOK sign, the finger-pinched nostril and so forth.

But, wait. Are these gestures universal? Or, more to the point, are they used by the Japanese?

Unfortunately, no. Japanese gestures are a world of their own, just as their language is. They seldom coincide in meaning with the gestures of any other country. You must resign yourself, therefore, to learning entirely new gestures, but be not dismayed. It's a lot easier to learn the gesture than to pronounce and remember the phrase you would have to use to convey the meaning of the gesture.

Let's review some basic gestures first:

Form a circle with the thumb and index finger of your right hand. To us, this would mean everything is OK; it's all right. To a Japanese this finger-formed circle is a standard reference to money.

Now quickly memorize one more gesture. Wave your open hand back and forth in front of you, as if you were chasing a mosquito away from your nose. This is the sign for NO, none, not, negative, I haven't any, I don't want any.

Suppose you are in a store where a sales clerk tries to sell you a pearl necklace that costs $500. You don't have nearly that much with you, but you can't make this persistent clerk understand. Solve the problem by using the first gesture above, then the second. Make the sign for money, then the negative wave of the open hand. He'll understand, believe me.

Clench your fist tightly. If you shake that clenched fist at an American, he would know you are angrily threatening him. To the Japanese, however, you are making the sign for someone who is stingy and close with his money. In fact, this should be easy to remembver since we have the expression "tight-fisted" that means the same thing.

If an American husband takes his wife out shopping in Japan and they're shown the same $500 pearl necklace as above, he may protest in tones of outrage that the price is entirely too high and that he would never consider buying such a souvenir. This is the moment for the bereft wife to clinch her right fist a point past it toward the husband with her left index finger. It may bring down the house--but mystify His Nibs.

Traditionally, the Japanese have regarded the stomach as the abode of the spirit or soul (not the region of the heart), but they have felt that the nose is the entrance leading eventually to the lower abode. Accordingly, when referring to themselves, they will often point to their noses, where we point to our chests. There is the story of the foreigner who was studying Japanese in a language school and on the second day of classes he heard the teacher say watakushi and point to his nose.

Assuming that watakushi was the word for "nose," he proceeded to use it that way: "My watakushi itches" and "My watakushi tells me dinner is ready," thoroughly mystifying the teacher and his Japanese friends.

Watakushi, of course, is the word for I, me, self.

If you are talking about someone and crook your index finger at the same time, you are saying that the person has the unfortunate habit of taking objects not rightfully his. The little finger pointing straight up in the air originally meant a baby, but nowadays it is more commonly used to mean girlfriend, mistress or wife. The right thumb held straight up in a similar manner means boyfriend, father, husband or master. The first two fingers of the hand tapped lightly against the lips is a reference to kissing.

Now this next gesture is very useful, but is one you must be careful about. We often signal goodbye by extending our right arm straight to the front and waving the fingers up and down, but the Japanesed have a similar gesture which is used when they want to call someone to their side. The only difference is that in the Japanese gesture, the fingers are moved while pointing at a slight downward angle and not held straight out.

Having just finished lunch one day in the Fujiya Hotel in Miyanoshita, I strolled outside in the fine mountain air in time to see a Japanese girl guide and her flock of 50 or so elderly American tourists whom she had brought to that resort by bus. Evidently it was time to board the bus and press on to greater wonders, so the young Japanese lady took up a position in the middle of the parking space in front of the hotel and blew her ever-present whistle which every bus guide must have. She got the attention of her 50 charges, meandering about in front of the hotel and used the Japanese beckoning gesture, waving her fingers at her charges.

Assuming she was waving bye-bye, the American tourists evidently thought she was indicating that they should wander the streets of Miyanoshita for a while longer, visiting shops and taking in the sights, so they dispersed throughout the town. Whereupon the distraught guide brought the misleading hand to her head with fingers outstretched, indicating her frustration at having made the wrong gesture.

When a Japanese rapidly crosses his two index fingers, he is telling you there is bad blood betwen the two people being discussed.

Some Westeners still use the old gesture (from the Middle Ages) of sticking the two fore fingers out from the forehead like horns, to suggest that someone is messing around with another man's wife.

The expression was "to put the horns on a husband." This would be a reasonable cause for jealousy, so it is a convenient mnemonic to help us remember that the same gesture in Japan is a sign for jealousy. The white cloth headdress worn by Japanese brides is called a tsuno-kakushi or "horn-hider," and the bride wears it to signify that she will hide her horns or not be jealous of her husband after marriage, no matter how mightily he philanders or tries to put horns on other husbands.

If you visit a Ginza bar and propose to one of the charming hostesses there that the two of you spend the next weekend in Atami or Nikko, she may make the sign of the horns with her index fingers, look at you quizzically, and ask, "Okusan wa?" (or "How about your wife?")

Cupping the left hand just below the level of the mouth with the right hand going through the motions of using chopsticks is a readily understood reference to food or to eating.

One reason, referred to earlier, that gestures are especially important in Japan is that they reflect the pervading Japanese fondness for communication without words, which have never been highly valued in Japan. Kato Shuichi has said, "A strong distrust develops between Japanese if they try to express everything through words" and Nitobe Inazo once wrote, "To give in so many words one's deepest thoughts and feelings is taken by us as an unmistakable sign that they are neither profound nor very sincere.:"

In place of words, the Japanese rely on ishin denshin, a kind of mental telepathy that seems to be possible in such a homogeneous race isolated from the rest of the world for many centuries--and on gestures. Hence, their importance.

Although it utilizes the torso in lieu of the hands, the bow is nonetheless a gesture--and a very important one at that. (The young women who bow the customers onto escalators and into elevators in department stores in Japan are said to bow as many as 2,000 or 3,000 times every working day.) Simply put, the bow indicates respect or appreciation. So often do the Japanese bow that it has become a reflex motion for many of them. The newcomer can occasionally see a Japanese bow when he is speaking on the telephone.

The question for the fresh arrival to Japan is, of course, when to bow--or if to bow at all. The best advice is probably to bow your head slightly when bowed to, but for the most part stick to your own code of manners if your visit is to be one of short duration.

If one holds his stiff right hand in front of his face with the palm facing to the left is asking indulgence for crossing the path of another or for passing between two persons. Accompanied with a slight bow of the head, this is a very frequently used gesture and should stand you in good stead in crowded Japan.

From the Nov. 22, 1997 Tokyo Weekender ( http://www.cyber.ad.jp/~weekendr/index.html )

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Updated November 24, 1997