Day 34 Asians taking photos

Ever wonder why Asians, particularly Koreans, Japanese and Chinese, love putting up their "V" sign when they take photos? (Nope, they don't stand for peace or anything.)

(Photo: in casual snapshots.)

(Photo: or even in business suits at a business event.)

I was talking to a bunch of non-Asians and this topic came up. We came up with several reasons for it:

1. It resembles chopsticks. Asians use chopsticks, so I guess sticking two fingers up means "oh yea, make no mistake, we use chopsticks, not forks or knives". The typical Asian pride in using dining utensils different than westerners, and of course, we love to show off our dining habits.

2. Those two fingers are the most powerful fingers. Why? Well, as Asians, we all know kung-fu (a drunken Finnish man on the bus kindly reminded me of this by repeatedly asking me whether I know kung-fu), so when you want to attack someone on their eyes, you stick up the two fingers and poke into their eye-socket. So I guess this is another way of celebrating our powerful fingers.

3. Also related to our kung-fu move, that's the one finger stand. Technically we should only stick up one finger when we take photos, but I guess Asians, particularly Chinese, are humble and don't want people to think we are number 1 or something by sticking just the index finger. So we stick out two fingers and say "V" instead.


But of course, these are only speculations, the history of the "V" sign and the reason for its popularity are unknown. This is just one of the great oriental mysteries that makes the east so mysterious to the blue-eyes.

Just joking!