Travel Faux Pas – Rude gestures in other countries

Oops, you just made a Travel Faux Pas. You told the nice officer you were in the market for a quickie with a seemingly innocuous hand gesture, perfectly fine in your home town but… now you’re in jail in Lesotho or breaking rocks in Bangalore. We Roaming Gallivants want to help you avoid these accidentally rude gestures before you end up bunk buddies with someone named Bronco, Panty Phantom, or Patrick. Recently I took a trip to Qatar on business and was doing a little research on things to do in Doha, when I came across a page describing all of the things one should not do while in Qatar. I was expecting all of the obvious no-no’s when visiting a Muslim country, like no pornography, no pork, no ass-less pants, you know the usual. So I was quite surprised to find that many of the most cherished hand gestures from my yoot were a definite no-go.

Sabbath Roooooles! – Rude gesture #1 The horns

Let’s start with old tried and true, heavy metal horns. Many a fond hour was whiled away jamming to some Black Sabbath with our fingers locked in this classic sign. It would be impossible to count how many times we flashed this sign to our buddies whenever a hot girl appeared, after we made a death defying  jump on a ratty BMX  bike, or we just wanted to say, “Fuck Yeah, Dude!” It turns out, as most things do, that there is more to the story, so it is our duty as Roaming Gallivants to inform you world travelers to the dangers of this gesture. In some parts of the world this is known as the Corna, namely in Portugal, Brazil, Baltic States, Colombia, Italy, and Spain. While perusing Telegraph UK’s travel section, I stumbled upon this great article, which enlightened me to some of the alternate meanings of this useful gesture. In short, you have been cuckolded. Your spouse has been naughty with the pool boy or is playing hide the sausage with your neighborhood butcher. It would behoove us to say, that should you choose to attend a heavy metal concert in any of the above mentioned countries, or in Qatar (I still can’t find out what this gesture means there as of yet), be careful and restrict your gestures to ones you see the locals using. In Italy this sign takes on another  less sexual meaning. There it is called the mallochio, and is used to ward off the evil eye. Wikipedia has an extensive article on this gesture. While in Italy I’m not sure whether the mallochio could be used to offend someone directly but you never know

Hey bra, what’s up? – Rude gesture #2 Shaka sign

I will now move on to another of my favorite gestures. Mostly popular in my elementary days when OP brand (Ocean Pacific) clothing was in hot demand for youngsters in land locked Arizona. Naturally there was no surfing going on in the middle of the dusty Arizona mountains, however this did not stop us wily yoots from attempting to emulate our westerly cousins in California by wearing what we thought was “Surf Wear”. I even remember one kid in school carrying around a tin of Mr Zog’s Sexwax of the coconut variety and doling out bits for the privileged  few to chew on; we didn’t have a clue what it was for. I fondly refer to the gesture meaning, “Hang Loose!” This gesture, according to Wikipedia is called the Shaka and was adopted by surfers visiting Hawaii on the 1960’s. The locals used the sign to convey the spirit of Aloha.  I remember adopting this sign and using it in a vain attempt to seem hip to the other 5th graders. I am not sure why the website where I grabbed the top image shows this gesture as rude. I will be emailing them to find out. If any Qatari readers or people familiar with obscene hand gestures and their meanings in the middle east wish to respond and leave a comment, I will happily inform the rest of the readers. I can only guess the Shaka gesture must resemble a cultural taboo or local form of wild life with a less than savory reputation or behavior.

I’ll take 5, thanks! – Rude gesture #3 The Mountza

Lets move on to another perennial favorite, the old 5. Called the Mountza or sometimes Moutza, this gesture literally means, I’m rubbing (shit, dirt, ashes, or whatever) in your face.  I remember an old Sesame Street song from a record I had as a child. In this song, a hapless construction worker, Biff, relates how his colleague Sully consoles him when he  can’t seem to remember the number 5. My favorite refrain goes like this, “Just think of your fingers and joy will arise. Cause when you think of your fingers you think of the number five.” I have always loved this song. To this day I never forget the number 5 because of this song. I found the song on You Tube and I highly suggest you give a listen  if you also have trouble remembering the number 5. It just so happens that if Biff were in Greece, he would know that he had been the butt of a joke they probably play on all expat construction workers, for he has just been told to show what they call the Mountza, and according to Wikipedia you should not, whilst in Greece, hold out your hand to the guy at the soda shop to order 5 bottles of pop for your co-workers, who by the way, are most definitely having a good laugh at your expense right now. Poor Biff, his esteem was probably low enough about not being able to count as high as five and now he’s being chased by an angry store owner wielding a club! We Roaming Gallivants hope that this sobering example of what could happen to you or your loved ones is ample proof of the dangers of throwing up random gang signs or simple hand gestures in foreign countries.

I didn’t mean to be rude officer!

In the course of my research to raise awareness about rude or obscene gestures in foreign lands, I discovered hundreds of webpages devoted to showing you just what I am attempting to convey with this humble post. There are many well crafted pages and posts with professionally executed diagrams and even some in-situ photographs of the offensive salutes, easily found with a quick search on google with the keywords: ‘offensive hand gestures in foreign locales’, ‘rude hand gestures’, or maybe this one, ‘things not to do with your hands whilst partying at a swank strip club in Burundi and trying to attract the attention of the ladyboy of whom you wish to stuff money in his/her thong!’ So, I have decided to stop at number four on my list of wacky rude gestures. So many others have done a wonderful job explaining the many pitfalls and dangers of leaving your suburb and venturing into the scary world.

I think Joey’s OK. – Rude gesture #4 The O.K. sign

This down-home American favorite has been around a long time perhaps the gesture is as old as the original OK. The etymology is shrouded in legend, lore, and a fair bit of acrimony amongst linguists of all sorts. Wikipedia has this to say

“OK” (also spelled “okay“, “ok“, or “O.K.“) is a word denoting approval, acceptance, agreement, assent, or acknowledgment. “OK”, as an adjective, can also express acknowledgment without approval.^[1] “OK” has frequently turned up as a loanword in many other languages.

Apparently in Germany, a few Mediterranean countries,  Brazil, and maybe some more I missed, the shape of this sign sure looks like an “anus”, therefore you must be an asshole or gay, and I don’t mean happy and cheerful gay, but good old fashioned homosexual; just how being homosexual could be considered an insult I’ll never understand. So, if these few countries have taken this innocuous gesture to mean “butthole“, then why hasn’t the rest of the world taken notice and followed suit? I also associate this sign with a game we played while in school, where the participants attempted to get the others to look at one’s fingers held in this position. If someone playing this game looks directly at this ersatz pucker, then he/she would receive a hearty punch to the arm. There is one caveat to this game: If you can penetrate the circle with your finger held stiffly erect and quickly withdraw it without the member being clenched  and held fast, you may punch the owner of the hole in the arm as hard you like ten times, your arm like a piston, wham! wham! wham! But wait, this game has one more twist. If the turgid length of your digit is caught in this rapidly clinching hole, you will receive a sweaty pummeling worth twenty strokes. This anecdote from my yoot is not, however the main gist of this last section. Although, looking back and knowing what we now know about this gesture, this game was decidedly unwholesome and not fit for teenagers. 

A good friend of mine, Joe Bolyard, noticed the recently re-imagined Walmart logo was a bit funny. Upon close examination, Joe noticed the logo resembled the self same topic of this final section. I will leave this last bit of judgement up to you. The tagline at the bottom of the logo says it all. To me it means, pucker up and take it America.

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