From: Amara Graps (amara@amara.com)
Date: Fri Aug 23 2002 - 23:47:44 MDT
Dossy:
>I recently saw a whole series of these HSBC advertisements along the
> walls in JFK International Airport. Very cute marketing campaign, I
>must say.
The HSBC advertisements appear every week in The Economist. That's
where I cut it out (and scanned it). That particular ad resonates
strongly with a philosophical perspective I carry.
>I also heard that the thumbs-up gesture in some culture (I can't
>remember which) is the equivalent to the American "flipping the bird"
>gesture of the middle finger. Talk about a quick way to innocently
>offend folks when traveling abroad ...
Sardinia and Greece
(There are probably more....)
http://garlic.aitec.edu.au/~bwechner/Documents/Hitch/Thumb/thumb.html
"It is not safe to use the 'thumbing-a-lift' gesture in either
Sardinia or Greece. The message transmitted to the passing drivers
by the hopeful figures at the roadside is not 'please help us', but
'get stuffed', and does not encouriage drivers to stop, except to
pick a fight. Our figures show that, although both the insult
meaning und the O.K. meaning are present in these countries,in
southern Sardinia and northern Greece the obscene insult is
dominant. Furthermore, with the addition of the upward jerking
movement, shared by both the insult and the true hitch-hiking
gestures, but absent from the O.K. version, far more people in those
countries would see the action in its obscene role, and the
hitch-hiking tourist would do well to imitate the local
hitch-hikers, and adopt the loosely waved, flat hand gesture we
observed at Sardinian and Greek roadsides.
Amara
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