American Hand Gestures in Different Cultures - 7 Ways to Get Yourself in Trouble Abroad

[garfieldcones]

Lesson: When in Greece, keep your hands in your pockets.

[QuintaEtSexta]

guys, im greek, and half of those gestures arent even insulting, infact we actually use most of them :-)

Cheers from Greece!

[PimsleurApproach]

The middle finger is almost universally offensive.

[gregmixing]

When you turn the peace sign around in Australia it means "two beers please."

[jopoy]

I lived in the Philippines and I've done that plenty of times to get my kid's attention and I've never gotten arrested.

[lcdstudios]

My uncle went to Brazil for a business trip. One of his friends offended a guy by snapping his fingers. It's amazing how one action can mean something so different to other cultures.

[melodyperez]

ahahahahaha! I LOVE THIS! He says it so naturally like nothing matters "In greece it means it sh*t" XD

[vaiol]

"But in Greece, it means eat sh*t"

[cynicalbluewhale]

This applies to Canada as well, the A-OK symbol from the USA can be used both ways here depending on which province you're in, and how much we're used to American tourists (most people know what it means in the states.)

[ghetts]

The two finger thing with the palm faceing the person is ok in the uk it means peace just dont do it the other way round

[AABatterykun]

I am tying my hands together next time I travel.

[MightyLemur]

In the UK, the victory symbol with palms facing the other person means "peace". With palms facing yourself it is similar to the f-bomb.

..Although the whole v for victory thing was actually started by the British prime-minister during WW2.

[bluebull]

HOW DOES THIS NOT HAVE MILLIONS OF VIEWS?!?!

[SPRGOD]

We still have the peace sign in Australia, but when you flip it around (back of your hand outwards) it becomes an insult.

[crazzysarah]

in Asia (or at least Korea that i know of) the same rule applies with the 'Come Here' hand sign. anything similar is used only for dogs and other lower animals and pets. if you want to tell a person to "come here" your palm should be face down and do a similar motion.
and (in Korea) if you try to flag down a taxi just by waving your hand, they will breeze by you with no hesitation. its similar to the rude 'come here' signal fro a dog.

[mandude]

Since when is \m/ "Texas Longhorns" Pretty sure its more widely considered a sign for heavy metal.

[PleiadesRuby]

The "peace"(Uk here) sign, originates from when the french said they would take over england, and cut of the english archers primary fingers.When the french had lost, and the survivors were fleeing, the we made that sign as an offensive gesture to the french, showing we still had our fingers

[bytesabre]

Brit here. V symbol with palm facing towards recipient = peace, see Winston Churchil "V for Victory". Palm towards person giving gesture = same as flipping the bird. Please note that flipping the bird US style will also work as intended.

[DarthSivius]

I'm from Belgium and the sign at 0:33 means something is extremely good, mostly used when eating something and someone asks how it was.

[sfaginx]

Also the stop hand sign is exactly the same in Greece. What you are reffering to is the mountza that is being done with palm and fingers spread. It means condemnation, but not to hell. It derives from Byzantine times, where for certain crimes, the judge would literaly make the mark of Saruman on the criminals face. Some say it even dates back to the eleusininan mysteries. Wikipedia has an article on mountza