Gestures. These are, you know, very important, because, normally, when you are making gestures, you are doing that subconsciously without knowing, ok? And another news you need to know is that gestures can be very different in different cultures and in different regions. I mean, it could be totally misleading. even some of the gestures that you are making every day or use that a lot, but you never notice. But there are actually cultural differences. What we do is that I want you guys to watch carefully my gestures. The first one, that most Chinese will do this, like we are teachers, we teach our kids, we want them to do an exercise, they are kind of puzzled and then, they do this. By doing this you say think harder，think harder. This is the message in your mind. But what they get for westerners? most westerners, this means what? This means you’ve got problems with your mind. You know, this guy’s crazy, you know. So most time, when, you know, we were watching someone and talking, and then, a British guy, or an American guy, they give you this sign, meaning that guy got mind problem. So this indicates your mind. And we always use this sign, yes? It means what? You know it means ok. Well, ok, it is “OK”, in American culture, but in other cultures, in France, that means what? “Zero”. That’s nothing. So you participated in a contest in mathematics, and then he ask you about the result, you say”ok”, then they thought you’ve got a zero. And even in Germany, this means something insulting. You are humiliating others. So you don’t do that. And also this one, yes, we do this to others to compliment others, you are great, yes. But you know, this in Japan, it means “five”. It only means “five”. When they are counting, they count five. This is “five”, ok? And in Germany, this is simply “one”. They count “one, two, three, four, and five”. This is one, there is nothing. So, in American sitcoms, you always see this sign, this. You know this sign is always vague to many, even native English speakers. Why? Because you know, this sign is called a “finger quote mark gesture”. It is a quote mark gesture made by our finger. You know, we make the double quote marks, which is by our gesture. Then, what are the meanings of double quote marks? We look deeper, it could be irony. So we call it the so-called quote mark gesture. “So called”. I mean it’s irony. Sometimes it means that you want to accentuate on this idea, you want to make a focus on this one. This is important. And then, you know, is confusing. You never know when they are using this, it could mean a lot of meanings. So this is the No.1 gesture that we want, we do not want our Chinese speakers to learn from. Well, you see westerners, when they are doing this, even themselves, are confused. So don’t do this. And this one. You may practice this one. This one, actually, it may mean something good. In UK, the States, crossing your fingers to pray good things for others, to wish something good to others. So I’ll cross my fingers for you guys. Sometimes, well, I believe that this sign, this gesture, what does it mean in Chinese? What do we mean for this one? Well, normally, if you make a good guess, most timely, it means, well, to establish friendship, ok? To be good, to be nice to someone. And it was shared by the Russian. Ok, the Russian, they use this, meaning that friendship. We are establishing friendship. So what happened was that in 1965, the Russian prime minister visited the United States, and they did a lot of talks, so after all those negotiations, he went back. And before he departed, I mean in front the door of the airplane, he made this sign to the American people, meaning we have established friendship. But this doesn’t mean that to American people’s eyes. This means I have won the battle, ok? So the next day, the American press, they were saying, well, we American, we during the whole talk, the whole negotiation, we lost, because the Russian guys said he won with this sign. So this is a kind of misleading. And it is so interesting that, you know, this sign is also very popular in China, and some Chinese guys use this sign as a universal one, right? “Victory”, we always making this scissors sign all the time, but not all of us are doing that in a proper way. Some will do this, but this is insulting to British people, ok? And, the gesture is also about how you move your head, like, in most cultures, when you hear something, and you agree with that, you will naturally do this. “I agree. That’s great. That’s good point.” Yes? But maybe not in Indian culture. Indian guys, you know, when they listen to your speech, if they agree with you, and they do this. “Woo. It’s wonderful, I really agree with you.” You know, and not only in India, but also in Albania. Albania and India. These two nations. They are kind of weird, they’ve got different meanings for this one. And even the hand. And latter on, we will be talking about hand shaking in the interviews skills, but here I would like to say that, you know, sometimes, when we were shaking hands with others . We actually, we didn’t distinguish whether it is a right hand or a left hand. If your right hand is occupied, sometimes we use left hand to shake hands with others. But could be much humiliating in Indian Culture, you know. In India, they shake hands only with their right hands because they eat with their right hands, and they do serious things with their right hand, but their left hand, well, was used for something very private in toilet, you know. That’s the tradition. So even today, they don’t do this anymore, but the culture is that do not use your left hand to shake your hands with others. Well, if we really want to look more details into gestures, I believe we’ll need another lecture. But I believe these are the most common ones. And the last piece of advice is that you do not create, you know, new gestures. You know I’ve seen very innovative Chinese gestures, like this. “Where do we go? I go to WC.” Well this means”W” and this is a “C”. Ok, it makes no sense. And, you know, the most innovative one that Chinese guys invented would be this one. What does this mean? Yes, this means”Wonderful”. Yes, this is "Wan De"(bended) four Come on, they will never get it, right?
