Category Archives: Gestures

Use And Misuse Of The Left Hand In India

Nationality: Indian
Age: 25
Occupation: Recent Graduate (Master's)
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 5/2/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Telugu, Hindi

Informant’s Background:

My informant, SV, is a recent graduate with a Master’s from the University of Southern California. He is 25, was born in Hyderabad, Telangana, India, and moved to the United States to attend a graduate program at USC. Post-graduation he remains in Los Angeles hunting for a job.

Context:

My informant, SV, is my roommate and a close friend of mine. I asked him if he could share some Indian traditions, customs, or folklore with me. NOTE: For this dialogue, I am AT.

Performance:

SV: “So… In India there’s a tradition of eating with your hands, and-which is quite common, and one of the, I guess, major rules or things that may offend someone is if you use your left hand to eat or grab things or get things. And the primary reason for this is it is considered unclean, because in older generations in India, uhm, when you’re cleaning yourself, uhm, after taking a shit… It’s usually using water and your hands, and most people are sort of taught to use their left hand, so that’s one of the reasons why your left hand is unclean, even though obviously you’re going to wash it with soap or gonna wash your hands. So that’s one of the kind of traditions there is that’s kind of prevalent in India.” 

AT: “What if you’re left handed?”

SV: “So that’s sort of a weird, uhm… So the way it started was even if you’re left handed you use sort of- you use your right hand to eat or like you use your right hand to for example, if you’re in a shop or in someone’s house and you’re giving something or taking something from them you’re always taught to use your right hand, or maybe if it’s heavy both hands, but never your left hand. But uhm… Like, I don’t know, I think that maybe in slightly older time they didn’t want people to be left handed for this reason, but I think nowadays less emphasis is placed on this thing.”

Informant’s Thoughts:

SV: “Overall I think like… There’s sort of like some reason-like some reasoning behind it that is sort of valid to some extent. But like I guess like with modern like, uhm, advancements and like stuff like washing your hands with soap and I think now in most urban settings people have a bidet they use to wash their like, bodies once they’re taking a shit. So I don’t think it’s as big an issue, using your left hand, and now being left-handed or using your left handed doesn’t make you any worse than any other person. I think maybe if you were in some more rural areas and you used your left hand I think maybe some people might like be offended. But in general I think this is not very common a lot now.

Thoughts:

I had never really heard of anything like this until now, but I think SV is right in that it maybe seems like fairly sound reasoning in times before advancements in modern day sanitation and cleanliness. Upon some further research, it appears that the left hand is not only used for wiping one’s rear but also for other “unclean” actions as well, such as the removal of shoes, and cleaning your feet. Apparently left-handed activists in India today are attempting to fight prejudice against left-handed people, in schools some left-handed kids are taught to only use their right hand and are beaten for using their left. However overall, as SV said, it seems these practices and prejudices are fading in modern India.

“The Head Nod”

Nationality: American
Age: 15
Occupation: Student
Residence: Lancaster, CA
Performance Date: May 2, 2021
Primary Language: English

Context: 

My informant, AW, is my 15-year-old brother. He is homeschooled, and participates heavily in gaming culture. He told me about “the head nod” during an informal interview at home. He says the head nod is universally known amongst all guys, and is the only way to greet each other. I refer to myself as SW in the text.

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AW: “Have you ever heard of the head nod?”

SW: “I’ve heard of the head nod.”

AW: “You have? Do you understand any of what it means?”

SW: “Not really, please explain the head nod to me.”

AW: “Ok so the head nod is if you go something like… I don’t know how you put this on to paper but if you like *he does the very slight upwards head nod of greeting* – the head nod. If you’re walking by someone and you um… yeah if you’re walking near… if you’re passing a stranger in a hallway and it’s one on one you to do this. If you’re in a crowd and you accidentally lock eyes with people you have to do this. It’s just… it’s just law. But, if it’s someone you do not know or… yeah if it’s someone you do not know it’s generally just a sign of respect or I acknowledge your presence and I acknowledge I was staring at you or something. And it’s just a *he does the slight downwards head nod of respect* or something like. If it’s someone you know, or you’re trying to get attention from someone, it’s *he does the upwards head nod*.

SW: “So it’s like a… a downward head nod of respect with people you don’t know, and an upward head nod of like a ‘hey’ with the eyebrows if it’s someone you do know.”

AW: “If it’s someone you know and you’re about to talk to them it’s like ‘hey’ *he proceeds to do the upwards hey head nod* but if it’s someone you know and you don’t want to talk to them it’s just *he does the downwards respect nod*.”

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Analysis:

Folk gestures are a very small thing, but arguably make up one of our most important ways of communicating with others. A known shared gesture helps link members of a group without anyone even needing to say anything. AW says that all guys know about head nod culture, and it is a way to show respect and communicate familiarity. It also is a way to differentiate who is “one of the boys” and on a peer level, versus someone you have a more formal relationship with.

Mano gesture

Nationality: Philippines
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: New Haven, CT
Performance Date: 04/10/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Tagalog

BACKGROUND: My informant, AV, was born in the Philippines. His parents are also both immigrants from the Philippines and currently live in the US. This piece is an explanation of a gesture used in Filipino culture to signify respect. AV explained that this is something his parents taught him to do in front of elders.

CONTEXT: This piece is from a facetime call with my friend to talk about customs in Filipino culture.

AZ: A custom that we have in the Philippines is like — they can’t see me right?

Me: It’s only audio.

AZ: Okay well in my specific language, like my parents would be like, [speaks Tagalog] Like, I don’t know how to explain it, but basically, you take the person’s hand and hold it, you hold it in your hand and you kind of like, bring it up to your forehead like this. Basically, it’s like a sign of respect for your elders and usually you go to your aunts and uncles and do that. But like, it’s funny. I think like a lot of times when like adults don’t want to feel super old, they’ll be like, “Oh no, don’t do that.” But like, I guess as you get older, if you’re like my grandma or like my grandpa they definitely expect us to do it. All the older relatives too. 

THOUGHTS: This gesture is really telling of the things that Filipino society considers important. As a kid, back when my parents were still fairly new to the US and staunchly steadfast in their culture, I had to show my respect to them by bowing my head and avoiding eye contact when speaking to them. On top of this, as the eldest daughter in the house. My mom always made me present a bowl of soap and water to my father and other older male relatives to wash their hands with whenever they ate dinner at our house. As I got older and my parents became more engrossed in American customs, I was no longer required to avoid eye contact or prepare my dad’s bowl. It’s interesting to me how the more “Americanized” I became the less I was required to show respect in the traditional way.

The paradigm of Italian hand-gestures

Nationality: Italian
Age: 63
Occupation: Businessman
Residence: Bologna
Performance Date: 03/28/2021
Primary Language: Italian
Language: French, Spanish

Main piece:

Background:

P.S.: It happened to me countless times, when abroad or speaking with non-Italians citizens, to receive this gesture, articulated in senseless ways, as an answer to my “I am Italian”, and…I don’t know, it has always been for me quite funny, but irritating at the same time.

My informant was born in Belgium from Italian immigrants and spent the first years of his life in Mons, before moving to Italy. Even after his transferring, he continued to visit many times his native country, and he had occasion of traveling and visiting a lot of world’s countries both for business and pleasure during his lifetime. 

Context:

My informant talked about this piece -and then ‘performed’ it- in his living room.  

Thoughts:

I believe it is quite known that Italians gesticulate a lot with their hands while speaking, so much that they are told to ‘speak with their hands’. Many are, indeed, the natural hand and body gestures people from Italy use while communicating, and they represents, for the most part, a genuine and unconscious means of expression. 
This particular piece my informant presents probably is the most famous one, which is often erroneously practiced by non-Italian speakers without acknowledging its real significance. As a matter of fact, this particular hand-gesture is the most-commonly used one to imitate and make fun of Italians, and it’s usually accompanied by nonsense exclamations like “pizza, pasta and mafia”. In reality, this gesture expresses and signifies concepts like “what are you saying?”, “who?”, “when”, so it is basically used to physically ‘supplement’ questions.

Eyes of Texas- UT Austin Anthem

Nationality: American
Age: 56
Occupation: Business Owner
Residence: USA
Performance Date: 04/28/2021
Primary Language: English

Main Content:

I: Informant, M: Me

I: So the Longhorns [University of Texas Austin] founded in 1881, have a song called the Eyes of Texas which was originally more of a baudry song sang by crooners and country folk. We adopted that and we sing that at the end of every game [football]. Win or Lose, when everybody is exiting the stadium the Longhorns put their horns up, this is the symbol for the horns [I love you in American Sign Language but thumb is wrapped in on top of ring and middle finger-in order to make the horns of a Longhorn] and we sing “The eyes of Texas are upon you, all the live long day” and at the end of it, it says “the eyes of Texas are upon you, til Gabriel blows his horn” 

M: Uh-huh

I: Gabriel is the angel in heaven and is the god of war, the angel of war. So we chant that at the end of every game to send everybody off the field. There is a whole tradition behind that, that is carried only by the Texas Longhorns

Context: My informant went to the University of Texas Austin and was a proud Longhorns fan and football supporter. Thus, he went to many games and participated in this custom.

Analysis: An important distinction to make here is that the song, “The Eyes of Texas” is not the folklore here. That song is copyrighted ‘authored literature.’ What is folklore however is the practice of using that song along with hand gestures at the very end of each football game. The performance of the song with the Longhorns ‘sign’ and rest of the supporters is the actual piece of folklore. This displays how authored literature can be taken and made a part of folklore. This performance allows for a display of pride in their identity as Longhorns, especially that this is done no matter if they win or lose to send their players off the fields. It’s as if to say, we support you and are proud no matter what.