7 Innocent Gestures That Can Get You Killed Overseas

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I just came across this funny article on the web.

As though we Aspies don't have enough problems with communication and making faux pas, the world of gestures is fraught with dangers.

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Wasn't the fictional character Borat middle eastern? The character whose most common and popular gesture was double thumbs up? If so, it adds a whole new level of irony and political incorrectness to that movie, as he even did this in his country of Kazakhstan!

I heard that in England or just in the UK in general, "fanny" is a swear word. Is this true? And if so, can you say "fanny pack" without people thinking you're swearing?

Kazakhs are considered Central Asian. What's weird is that while they showed everything in the Cyrillic alphabet, most of ex-Soviet central Asia uses our alphabet (except for Tajikistan, which uses Arabic script).

Incidentally, Kazakhstan is half Kazakh, half Russian in terms of demographics, and religious affiliation is half Muslim, half Russian Orthodox.

Very informative; is this one of your areas of interest?


M.

I think fanny means a woman's private area in the U.K.

Also, the word "root" means to have intercourse with in Australia. In some video games, "root" is a common attack which disables enemy movement. Australians will look at you quite funny if you said you rooted someone in a video game.

Last edited by Kalister1 on 04 Jun 2008, 4:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, it is to some people and it refers to a different part of the (female) body in Britain. If you said "fanny pack" most people would probably giggle at you.

I once had a co-worker from Ireland, who would get very flustered and embarrassed if someone said the word "knob." She explained that where she came from, that word stood for a certain male body part.

Incidentally, it is.

Fascinating; how do the two religious sects manage to co-exist? Has it been a long standing balance of faith in the area? Was the Cyrillic used by the former central government, or were these new signs/placards? Curiousity 1, Makuranososhi 0.


M.

I love my thumbs...I'll never think of the same again!

The silk road went through Kazakhstan. As a result, people from many different areas in Eurasia settled there. There is still today a very small Korean Buddhist minority in Kazakhstan that was much larger centuries ago.


Regarding cyrillic, yes, it's use was instituted by the former soviet government and remains today the language used among govt. members and professionals.

*Crawls into the depths of my cardboard box*
O_o;

I think I'll just be hiding my hands now, yes.

Did you know that in Ireland, a peace sign backwards is the same as the bird?

They would cut those two fingers off of criminals..

So showing them like that is a bit ... Offensive, to say the least.

*Clears throat and hides*

Thank you, TallyMan! That was f**king hilarious!!

I'm NZ so sort of like Austrialia. Yeah you are right. But both countries swear all the time so it doesn't really matter.

lol... I'll be sure to remember them...