Title: Pointing One’s Fingers

General Information about Item:

• Customary Lore: Hand Gesture
• Language: Japanese
• Country of Origin: Japan
• Informant: Jong-ki Kim
• Date Collected: 11-03-18

Informant Data:

• Jong-ki was born and raised in Jeunju, South Korea. After graduating high school, he enlisted in the South Korean army to complete his mandatory service for two years. After his service completion, he studied abroad in Tokyo, Japan as a university student for four years. After graduation, he continued to live in Japan and work as an entrepreneur in commerce and trading between East Asian countries. He is fluent in both Japanese and Korean. As a business owner he splits his time operating and living in both Tokyo, Japan and Seoul, South Korea.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: Japanese society often has strict set of social norms that people should not act too silly or offend one another publicly. However in a tense or heated situation, someone may act in a very explicitly rude way such as pointing one’s finger at another person. Pointing the finger is considered rude in Japanese culture because the person pointing is associated with explicitly calling out the other individual for their wrong behavior or actions. Repeatedly pointing while speaking to another person is considered a sign of extreme frustration or an expression of dissatisfaction. The action is associated with aggression and anger. While it may not seem so in other countries, pointing can be considered a very rude action and even an invitation for warranted aggression.
• Social Context: This gesture was mentioned when the interviewee was asked about any insulting gestures that exist in Japanese culture. Jong-ki stated that in arguments, someone may begin to point at you while raising their voice. In situations like this, the confrontation could possibly escalate into more serious aggression or violence.

Item:

• The gesture begins with the actor holding out one of his or her hands. The hand is clenched in a fist and only one index finger is extended out to another person.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

*Note: For personal privacy concerns, Jong-ki has asked for his face to be covered in the photo for this collection.

Transcript:

• “When you’re talking, and you point at the other person, and you are repeatedly pointing at them, it means that you are not happy with the current situation. It’s a rather obvious gesture and is considered quite rude… It’s different from the indication of location, like ‘Do you see that sofa over there,’ but it is more of an aggressive and charged action. ” -Jong-ki

Informant’s Comments:

• This gesture could be taken as quite rude, so it’s important for visitors in Japan to realize that pointing is very impolite!

Collector’s Comments:

• While pointing could be considered as a rude gesture in many cultures, I found the level of seriousness of the pointing gesture in Japanese culture to be quite interesting. It seems that the cultural connotation behind the pointing gesture is charged with aggression and anger. I have heard stories of Japanese people being a bit startled by foreigners who visit the country and point at other people naturally without intending aggression. Because this has become a common issue due to the growing tourism industry in Japan, I think some Japanese are more understanding and are not too offended if a foreigner points at them.

Collector’s Name: Young Jang 

Tags/Keywords:

• Insulting Gesture
• Pointing One’s Finger
• Japanese Insulting Gesture

Title: Shaking One’s Leg

General Information about Item:

• Customary Lore: Body Gesture
• Language: Japanese
• Country of Origin: Japan
• Informant: Christina Bae
• Date Collected: 10-18-18

Informant Data:

• Christina Bae is a senior student at Dartmouth College. She was born in and raised in Japan. She went to the American School in Japan until ten years old. During this time she became fluent in both Korean and Japanese. When she was ten, Christina and her family moved to Atlanta, Georgia. Her family has resided there ever since. She currently is majoring in Japanese and Chinese Language and Literature. As a talented pianist, Christina enjoys performing as well as teaching piano to the local members of Hanover.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: Japanese society often has strict set of social norms that people should not act too silly or offend one another publicly. However, insulting gestures can still be found in the culture, albeit in more subtle ways than some of the other cultures that have been analyzed by my group (e.g. Italian and French). Especially in work place environments, age and experience hierarchies are strictly in place; further, corporate ranking determine the level of language, body language, and respect one should show to another person at the job. As such, small gestures such as shaking one’s foot is viewed as a very deliberate action to possibly undermine another person’s authority or to subtly hint that they are bored of listening to them. Due to the clear expectations of behavior set by Japanese corporations, a lack of adherence to these behavioral rules (e.g. shaking one’s foot during a meeting) can be viewed as an insulting gesture.
• Social Context: This gesture was mentioned when the interviewee was asked about any insulting gestures that exist in Japanese culture. Christina stated that while growing up she was told explicitly not to shake her legs because it is a rude or impolite thing to do. Especially in situations in which you need to show respect to another person (e.g. in the classroom to the professor or at the work to your boss), you should never shake your leg in front of your superior. The act may be subtle, but it is taken seriously as a rude or impolite gesture.

Item:

• The gesture begins with the actor crossing his or her legs while sitting down. Then the actor shakes on of his or her feet.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript:

• “Japanese people find it very disturbing when someone is sitting down and shaking one of their legs. People view that as a disrespectful action. but in the States, I’ve heard no one ever comment on me shaking my legs. In one of my Japanese classes at Dartmouth, the Professor noticed me shaking my legs and said, ‘Oh I’ll end class early today because Bae-san (Christina) seems very bored about this lesson.’ She made a snarky comment about my feet and took it in a negative way. ”  -Christina Bae

Informant’s Comments:

• It’s a very subtle gesture, but Japanese people do take notice if you shake your leg.

Collector’s Comments:

• This gesture was particularly interesting to collect mainly because “shaking one’s leg” is not considered to be a rude or impolite gesture in the United States; however, in Japan, it seems that people become very concerned when a conversation partner begins to shake their legs. I think that the attention to subtle body language is very telling of Japanese culture in which people are expected to “read the situation in the room” and act accordingly. In other words, people naturally learn about social norms and the appropriate way to act in certain situations. Because body language is one of the first signs of change in a person’s attitude or even their thoughts, it seems that more subtle gestures have deeper meanings in Japanese cultures than in Western counterparts. For example, in the United States, just as Christina said, I have never heard anyone make a comment about my shaking my own legs.

Collector’s Name: Young Jang 

Tags/Keywords:

• Insulting Gesture
• Shaking One’s Leg
• Japanese Insulting Gesture

Title: Akanbe

General Information about Item:

• Customary Lore: Facial and Hand Gesture
• Language: Japanese
• Country of Origin: Japan
• Informant: Professor Mayumi Ishida
• Date Collected: 10-16-18

Informant Data:

• Professor Mayumi Ishida was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan.  She majored in English Literature during her undergraduate studies, and tutored Japanese students in English as a part time job. During her sophomore year of college, she studied abroad for one year in the United States at Tufts University. After returning to Japan, she continued her studies in English Literature and Language throughout undergraduate and the graduate level. While at graduate school, she chose to apply to a teaching fellowship program in which Japanese native speakers went abroad to the United States to teach Japanese. She was accepted as a teacher and began to teach Japanese in the United States. She has taught at academic institutions such as University of Wisconsin, Wellesley College, and Dartmouth College. When she is not teaching Dartmouth students Japanese, Professor Ishida can be often seen walking her dog named “Saki” around campus.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: Japanese society often has strict set of social norms that people should not act too silly or offend one another publicly. As such, explicit insulting gestures are mainly found in the children demographic where acting silly or doing something very “rude” or “offensive” is less frowned upon and more accepted. Insulting gestures such as the “akanbe” which are directly communicating a rude or insulting meaning to another person is only acceptable in few situations: (1) a child is doing the gesture to another child (2) a child is secretly doing the gesture to an adult  (3) an adult is indirectly or secretly doing the gesture to another adult.
• Social Context: This gesture was mentioned when the interviewee was asked about any insulting gestures that exist in Japanese culture. Professor Ishida stated that she remembers a childhood friend from elementary school doing this gesture to her as a joke. She mentioned that children would sometimes do the “akanbe” gesture behind their teacher’s back at the teacher to express some sort of dissatisfaction due to an unfair treatment. For example, if a teacher were to scold a elementary school child, the child may retaliate with the “akanbe” gesture while the teacher’s back is turned away.

Item:

• The gesture begins with the actor pulling the skin underneath one of their eyes downward with one hand, which causes the red of the eye to be shown. The actor then sticks out his or her tongue.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

*Note: Professor Ishida did not wish to be photographed while doing the “Akanbe” gesture. The picture below is another interviewee Rina Yaita, who also mentioned the “Akanbe” gesture during her interview.

Transcript:

• “ Children from ages of kindergarten to even 3rd grade can be seen doing something like ‘akanbe.’ However, whenever the kids become a bit older and more of a teenager, then they want to be more adult-like and would not do something that would seem very childish… It’s quite rare that children would do the ‘akanbe’ to people that they are taught to show respect to. For example, children are taught to respect their teachers at school, so if a child would do the ‘akanbe’ to a teacher directly, that would be a very rude thing. So maybe in that case they would try to hide it.” – Professor Ishida

Informant’s Comments:

• While children do this kind of gesture to one another as a joke, in almost all cases Japanese adults or even young adults would not perform this gesture.

Collector’s Comments:

• This is one of the very few explicit and direct insulting gestures that I was able to collect from Japanese culture. In the case of the “akanbe” it seems like its major influence is seen more in children’s cartoons or comics rather than in real life. While in real life, children are expected to behave properly and politely, the world of cartoons or comics depict children behaving in a rude or silly ways. As such, the children in fictional settings are more frequently seen doing the “akanbe” than children in real life.

Collector’s Name: Young Jang 

Tags/Keywords:

• Insulting Gesture
• Akanbe
• Japanese children’s gesture
• Japanese Insulting Gesture

Title: Oni (the supernatural ogre) gesture

General Information about Item:

• Customary Lore: Facial and Hand Gesture
• Language: Japanese
• Country of Origin: Japan
• Informant: Ikuko Watanabe-Washburn
• Date Collected: 11-08-18

Informant Data:

• Professor Ikuko Watanabe-Washburn is a Professor of Japanese language at the ASCL department at Dartmouth College. She was born and raised in Japan for most of her life. She came to the United States and did not have any specific plans to become a Japanese language instructor; however, one of her close friends who was living in the United States recommended her a job opportunity to teach Japanese at an academic institution. Professor Watanabe began to teach Japanese to non-native speakers in the United States and eventually continued it as her profession. She has taught at several different academic institutions including Harvard University, Middlebury College, and Dartmouth College.

Contextual Data:

• Cultural Context: Japanese society often has strict set of social norms that people should not act too silly or offend one another publicly. As such, some insulting gestures are indirect and have a more roundabout meaning. In some cases, gestures are done to silently communicate a characteristic about someone behind their back. In this case with the “oni gesture,” the gesture is meant to communicate the fact that person A is angry to person B without letting person A find out.
• Social Context: This gesture was mentioned when the interviewee was asked about any insulting gestures that exist in Japanese culture. Professor Watanabe had difficulty remembering any gestures that were meant to directly insult someone; however, she mentioned the “oni gesture” as something that people do to refer to someone who is currently angry or mad. For example, when the manager at a workplace is angry at the workers, the workers may do the “oni gesture” at one another to acknowledge the fact that the manager is angry. This is done behind the manager’s back, which makes the gesture indirect and more secretive. It is done more to communicate something behind another person’s back as opposed to directly doing the gesture to make someone angry or to express feelings of anger. The gesture is called the “oni” gesture because it resembles what a Japanese traditional ogre monster called, “oni” looks like.

Item:

• The gesture begins with the actor holding both their hands in fist form. Then both the index fingers of the hands are extended outward to resemble horns. Finally, a scary face expression is made. The facial expression varies from person to person and is not necessarily a uniform expression.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript:

• “It’s quite difficult to think of an insulting gesture that Japanese do to one another directly; however, I think that the oni gesture is a relatively universal one that is recognized by most Japanese. It is done rather secretively behind someone’s back in order to tell others that someone is angry. For example, this can occur in a workplace environment where you have strict hierarchies in place between the worker and the manager. If the manger gets angry about something, a worker may do the “oni gesture” to express silently to the other workers that the manager is mad. The gesture is rather convenient because everyone can easily understand the gist of the situation and act accordingly, which is important because Japanese society demands that people read the situation correctly and act within certain expectations.” -Professor Watanabe

Informant’s Comments:

• It’s important to note that this gesture would usually be done secretively behind someone’s back, never directly at them.

Collector’s Comments:

• I found this gesture to be interesting because of the indirect aspect as well as well as the role of social hierarchy in play. Specifically, when I began to collect insulting gestures, I expected to find more direct insults or rude gestures that express feelings or anger or frustration; however, in Japanese culture, it seems that insulting gestures are more roundabout, indirect, or secret ways to express your inner feelings. In this case, the Oni gesture specifically exists to communicate that someone is angry without verbally saying it out loud. This is very interesting when comparing to insulting gestures that exist in Italian or French cultures which is more direct. In these cultures the gestures are created directly for another person to see and recognize the insult, while in Japan, insulting gestures tend to be more subtle or done in secret.

Collector’s Name: Young Jang 

Tags/Keywords:

• Insulting Gesture
• Oni
• Indirect Gesture
• Japanese Insulting Gesture