I decided to have some good natured, humorous banter with her by holding up my hand with my thumb and forefinger separated. She caught on and said, "Is that two?" I said, "Oh, sorry. No this is what I really wanted to say," and I held my hand up with my ring finger and pinky in the air and said, "This is what I really meant." She laughed and again, ferociously, this time, literally threw the culturally proper sign for the number two into my very sharply focused line of vision. Laughing and chuckling we made our way behind her sashaying saunter to the table that was available. When she had put a safe and private distance between us, Belle asked me, "How do you think up this stuff?" Actually, I don't think it up. It just slices and stabs its way into my brain. Many times day. You don't hear it because I am so busy with so many things all day that I can't capture it all. Every day I finish the day with more forgottens than remembereds. Trust me, it is very frustrating. It is perhaps a good thing that what I fail to capture is really not very important or significant. I suppose that is a good thing.
I hate to imagine what would happen if I captured significant thoughts and then proceeded to run them through the mish-masher of my brain for public consumption. It would be a disaster. You too, then must be thankful that society at large is not in any grave danger of being severly and crippingly brain-wounded.
So, friends, take it easy. I will not take you through the pain of telling you how many cultural ways I have observed of how to count to ten on your fingers. We (United States) start with the index; some Europeans start with the thumb and the Japanese start with the pinky.
Some start with holding the finger out away from the palm while others signify the count by folding the appropriate finger into the palm. So you see. If you live long enough in the company of people from different corners of the world, you can learn a lot of ways to do a lot of unimportant things.
I wonder in which country or on which planet the people who invented the computer on/of protocol of using the same command switch for the start and the stop.
Relax and enjoy my vacation time along with me.
Just like with the same hand palm facing away from you means stop but when it faces you with waving motion means come. lol
ReplyDeletePaul, Do you know how to tell the differance between a man and a monkey?, it all depends on which end they open a banana from.Give a human a banana and tell them this and watch how long it takes them to open it.Some wont even try.
ReplyDeleteLet me know which end you open it from.
Andrew
Interesting comments. The open hand means stop if it is stationary with the palm out from the face. In some cultures, the palm facing out but moving back toward the body in a downward arc means come. The hand up with the back toward the onlooker with a wave toward the onlooker means go away.
ReplyDeleteThe monkey one is interesting because in some countries the people open the banana like the monkey, from the end with no stem. I always open it from the end with the stem, as do most people. The difference is, so they say, is that when you open it from the "no stem" end, you avaois getting the strings that happen a lot when a banana is opened from the stem end. By the way, for you non-tropical types, the stem end on a banana is the bottom, not the top.
Hey, did you notice how I mangled the word "AVOID" in the comment above? That's not cultural, it is stiff, numb fingers from arthritis and careless (non-existent) pre-publishing proof reading
ReplyDelete