Gestures

I loved the lesson in class this week about gestures. I talk with my hands all the time and, like most people, I don't even think about it. But I found it so interesting to look into the gestures we make everyday and consider what they actually mean. I never thought about how an innocent gesture in one country could mean something offensive in another, and how different signs can mean something comepletly differnet. The Japanese symbol for the number 6, for example, is something totally foreign to us. Without knowing that it means a number, we could take it for something rude when it's really just a common everyday sign for them. Another example that I thought was interesting was how in most European countries, they think that the left hand is evil. I know a couple left handed people, and they most definatly are not evil. But the fact that if they had lived in a European country, they'd be forced to use their right hand is so interesting. Some people were even saying how their grandparents would make them to use their right hand because of that reason. I now know that if I ever go out of the counrty, I'll have to watch what I do with my hands!