The Definitive Book of Body Language - Barbara Pease [43]
If you're not sure how to be polite in someone else's culture,
ask the locals to show you how things are done.
Cultural misinterpretations of gestures can produce embarrassing results and a person's background should always be considered before jumping to conclusions about the meaning of his or her body language and gestures.
If you regularly travel internationally, we recommend Roger Axtell's Gestures: Do's and Taboos of Body Language Around the World (John Wiley & Sons). Axtell identified over 70,000 different physical signs and customs globally and shows you how to do business in most cultures.
Chapter 6
HAND AND THUMB
GESTURES
“Napoleon in His Study” by Jacques-Louis David, 1812,
showing the French leader in his famous pose—did he really
have a peptic ulcer or was he just having a good time?
A human hand has twenty-seven small bones, including eight pebble-shaped bones in the wrist that are laced together by a network of ligaments and dozens of tiny muscles to move the joints. Scientists have noted that there are more nerve connections between the hands and the brain than between any other parts of the body, and so the gestures and positions we take with our hands give powerful insights into our emotional state. Because our hands are usually held in front of our body, these signals are easy to see and most of us have several trademark hand positions we continually use. For example, mention the name Napoleon and everyone will describe a man with his hand tucked into his waistcoat, his thumb pointing upward, and will probably volunteer a theory or tell rude jokes about why he did it. These include: he had a stomach ulcer; he was winding his watch; he had a skin disease; that in his era it was impolite to put your hands in your pockets; he had breast cancer; he had a deformed hand; he kept a perfumed sachet in his vest that he'd sniff occasionally; he was playing with himself; and that painters don't like to paint hands. The real story is that in 1738, well before Napoleon's birth, François Nivelon published A Book of Genteel Behavior describing this posture: “… the hand-held-in was a common stance for men of breeding and manly boldness, tempered with modesty.” When Napoleon saw the painting he said to the artist, “You have understood me, my dear David.” So it was a gesture to convey status.
The history books show that Napoleon did not have this gesture in his regular repertoire—in fact, he didn't even sit for the famous painting that featured it—the artist painted him from memory and added the gesture. But the notoriety of this hand gesture highlights how the artist, Jacques-Louis David, understood the authority that the position of the hand and thumb would project.
Napoleon was five feet four inches tall but those who see
the painting perceive him as over six feet tall.
How the Hands Talk
For thousands of years, the level of status people held in a society would determine the priority order in which they could hold the floor when speaking. The more power or authority you had, the more others would be compelled to stay silent while you spoke. For example, Roman history shows that a low-status person could be executed for interrupting Julius Caesar. Today, most people live in societies where freedom of speech flourishes and usually anyone who wants to put forward an opinion can do so. In Britain, Australia, and the U.S.A. it's even permissible to interrupt the president or prime minister with your opinion or to give a condescending slow handclap, as happened to Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2003 during a television discussion on the Iraqi crisis. In many countries, the hands have taken on the role of “punctuation marks” to regulate turn-taking in conversation. The Hands Raised gesture has been borrowed from the Italians and French, who are the biggest users of “hand talking,” but it is still rarely