Japanese girls and the peace sign

[Shibakoen]

Don't forget, it's also polite to cover your mouth when you're chatting away on your keitai! I never saw many men doing this, either, but if a woman answered her phone on the train (the nerve!) she'd generally cover her mouth while speaking. I think this also has nothing to do with the quality of the teeth, but just muffling the sound of a conversation. That's one habit I'd gladly welcome hear in the States. What I would give for a quiet evening reading the paper at Starbucks!!!

[iheartjapan]

I have a Japanese exchange student at my school. She sais she only does it when having her picture taken, or if she wins some sort of competition.

[Suziepoo]

Japanese people do the peace sign to hide the people in the background.
They don't want the people's faces behind them in the photo so they have no choice but to do peace.
V(^_^)V

[L33TNINJA]

I have lived in Japan for 3 months now and I have seen boys and men also cover their mouths when they laugh. I think it is a modesty thing and/or to not seem rude. If you look at a picture of a westerner laughing out loud then a Japanese person laughing as well, but with a hand covering their mouth, it makes the westerner look really rude looking to me.

and I saw an old man just today on a train covering his mouth while talking on the phone....

I also cover my mouth when I laugh hard.

[PandanoTake]

It's because it's rude to laugh with your mouth open.
as for the peace sign, there's also the "Special piece" where you bend the fingers, like making bunny ears, just...not on someone.

I took a funny picture and gave someone bunny ears, and we had a good laugh about it.

"Usagi no mimi! Usagi no mimi!!"

[Reno]

Japanese girls with peace signs actually look cuter too, dont ask me why

[AJBryant]

Married women in Japan ages ago, dyed their teeth black to be less attractive.

Actually, no.

It was a religious thing. Teeth are white. Bone. Bone=death. Disguise the white teeth/bone/death, it's not there.

Tony

[Infidel]

what I thought was wierd were guys filing their eye teeth to points.

[Machina Maw]

It's not just Japan where they cover their mouths when laughing, for whatever reason. I cover my mouth when laughing, if I'm not completely comfortable with the person/people around me. And I cover my mouth when I yawn, because everyone looks stupid when they yawn.

[keatonatron]

jinksys wrote:
I notice that in alot of pictures that japanese girls often give the peace sign. What does it mean in japan and why do they do it so often?

No one ever knows what to do in pictures.

An easy solution is to just do what everyone else does.

[jinksys]

[two_heads_talking]

there must needs be a ressurection of any dead thread. i think we need to find that gif Tony uses for flogging a dead horse though.. besides, it's your thread, you should have thought about that or looked it up before you asked.. DOH!!!:o

[jinksys]

two_heads_talking wrote:
there must needs be a ressurection of any dead thread. i think we need to find that gif Tony uses for flogging a dead horse though.. besides, it's your thread, you should have thought about that or looked it up before you asked.. DOH!!!:o

I asked almost a year ago! LOL, someone else asked the same question and a mod pointed them to my thread

DIE THREAD DIE!

[keatonatron]

JoshM wrote:
Married women in Japan ages ago, dyed their teeth black to be less attractive.

It was quite the opposite. Dark teeth were considered attractive, as you can see in many old films. And if movies aren't reliable enough, you can read about it in the Tale of Genji, the oldest novel ever written.

At one point they talk about how this one man is so attractive because his teeth have rotten to a "lovely dark grey". Women were/are allowed to pay more attention to their appearance than men, so they were the only ones to dye their teeth, but if it were considered manly I'm sure the men would have done it to.

[Myuka]

It means vicory.