Are They Giving Us the "Peace" Sign?

[iConsume]

Japanese are masters of minimalism, i.e., copycatting & regurgitating with lean efficiency.

But I've always been stumped about the two-finger salute that EVERY JAV STAR gives in just about every photo I see on Twitter or Instagram.

Is it a PEACE sign? Like people used to do in the 1960s?
Or has it been assumed by the Japanese culture and modified into something else?

I know it doesn't mean they want both their asses and pussies stuffed at the same time, unfortunately for us. At least most of them don't. Can you imagine if every JAV star got two-hole punched like that? The two-finger salute would be a true sign of victory...for all of us.

Alas, woe, I know it doesn't mean "I want to be double penetrated."

So are they just 50 years behind the times on that one? If so, they gotta lot of catching up to do.
Things ain't very peaceful out there anymore.

 

[periph]

short answer: no.

long answer: http://time.com/2980357/asia-photos-peace-sign-v-janet-lynn-konica-jun-inoue/

 

[DarthVergessenheit]

Lol oh man, you must not know many Asian people, I think periph's answer is like the long historic version, but at least for Asian Americans I know, it's just something Asians, specifically girls, do in photos, doesn't really symbolize anything at least for girls I know that do it. If anything it's just something you do with your hands in photo or it just makes you look cutesy I guess.

 

[jugulear]

.
Yet your point is exactly how the article concluded in its last two paragraphs, DarthVergessenheit... the girls who use this gesture today often have no idea how it started, nor do they care. They just know it makes them look cute.

So the best guesses as to why this symbol got popularized boil down to a celebrity's usage in Konica camera commercials, and boosted by a failed American Olympian's having made the gesture in 1972. It started leaking into the Japanese consciousness with manga cartoons in the late 1960s.

Thank you for the article, Periph; I remember making note of the mysteries of this gesture in one of my past posts, so it was good to be enlightened.

I also took an appreciative note of how TIME Magazine labeled Asians as "East" Asians, since not all Asians are of the Chinese/Japanese/etc. variety, such as Indians and Russians. Of course, the word "Asian" has come to mean (at least in the USA) only those of the former variety, which makes sticklers for accuracy bristle... as with the term "anti-Semitic," which is also wrong. (Not all Jews are Semites, and not all Semites are Jews.) Come to think of it, the now politically-incorrect term that used to define Asians of Chinese/Japanese stock, "Oriental," was also wrong. Remember Murder on the Orient Express, alluding to a people that were of a very different race?

.

 

[DarthVergessenheit]

.
Yet your point is exactly how the article concluded in its last two paragraphs, DarthVergessenheit... the girls who use this gesture today often have no idea how it started, nor do they care. They just know it makes them look cute.

So the best guesses as to why this symbol got popularized boil down to a celebrity's usage in Konica camera commercials, and boosted by a failed American Olympian's having made the gesture in 1972. It started leaking into the Japanese consciousness with manga cartoons in the late 1960s.

Thank you for the article, Periph; I remember making note of the mysteries of this gesture in one of my past posts, so it was good to be enlightened.

I also took an appreciative note of how TIME Magazine labeled Asians as "East" Asians, since not all Asians are of the Chinese/Japanese/etc. variety, such as Indians and Russians. Of course, the word "Asian" has come to mean (at least in the USA) only those of the former variety, which makes sticklers for accuracy bristle... as with the term "anti-Semitic," which is also wrong. (Not all Jews are Semites, and not all Semites are Jews.) Come to think of it, the now politically-incorrect term that used to define Asians of Chinese/Japanese stock, "Oriental," was also wrong. Remember Murder on the Orient Express, alluding to a people that were of a very different race?

.

lol Yeah to be honest, I only skimmed the beginning of the article so I didn't see that part, but yeah just to make them look more cute, it's mostly more Asians from Asia rather than Asian Americans that do it too.

 

[Hans Kowalski]

Now here's an interesting question:

Is Ai Uehara a Nazi, or does this gesture have a different meaning in Japan?

 

[jugulear]

.
Oh, those Nazis! They took a centuries-old symbol and claimed it for themselves (now everyone says it's a "Swastika"), made it so no man could ever wear a happy Charlie Chaplin moustache again, and took an innocent salute first made famous by the humanitarian Julius Caesar (and used by American schoolchildren in their sacred recital of the Pledge of Allegiance), ruining it so much that now, when an innocent Japanese cutie-pie simulates the now-infamous wave, we think she has a soft spot for Tojo.

I think the Nazis did a couple of other bad things, too.

.

 

[CodeGeek]

Maybe the explanation is a lot easier. Unfortunately we only have that one image of the whole video clip instead of that video clip. Maybe she simply was waving her hand towards her fans. If you take a photo of that it could look like that Roman salute.

BTW: It's funny: In the background her mouth is open while her real mouth is closed. Aha...

 

[Hans Kowalski]

Here's the video, she does it throughout her whole speech. Of course I don't seriously think, she's doing the Hitler salute but you never know.

Her speech starts at about 1:51.

 

[CodeGeek]

[...] Of course I don't seriously think, she's doing the Hitler salute but you never know. [...]

I assumed that. And thanks for the link.

 

[iConsume]

Ai Uehara is goody-goody all the way. Seems to be a very upbeat, bright, cheery, good-vibes gal.

 

[Gir633]

Now here's an interesting question:

Is Ai Uehara a Nazi, or does this gesture have a different meaning in Japan?

She is asking if anyone has seen Kyle, he is about that tall.

 

[lordsuperjesus]

Ai Uehara is goody-goody all the way. Seems to be a very upbeat, bright, cheery, good-vibes gal.

i dont know if "goody-goody" is a what ai would call Ai Uehara. i mean have you seen any of that girls vids?




she is a nasty girl.

 

[ding73ding]

.
Yet your point is exactly how the article concluded in its last two paragraphs, DarthVergessenheit... the girls who use this gesture today often have no idea how it started, nor do they care. They just know it makes them look cute.
...
east in the USA) only those of the former variety, which makes sticklers for accuracy bristle... as with the term "anti-Semitic," which is also wrong. (Not all Jews are Semites, and not all Semites are Jews.) Come to think of it, the now politically-incorrect term that used to define Asians of Chinese/Japanese stock, "Oriental," was also wrong. Remember Murder on the Orient Express, alluding to a people that were of a very different race?
.

Personally I find the article to be ridiculous. The writer actually admitted the American skater didn't invent anything. It's just a fluffy feel good story for English-speaking readers. There's no question Japanese picked up the V-sign from WWII and post WWII American presidents Eisenhower and Nixon, who each had great exposure in Asia during their times. Way way before the '72 Tokyo Olympics.

Yes I think they are aware of it being Victory and Peace. So what,, an otaku making a selfie with a AV performer is a form of mini-victory isn't it (I have never had such luck). That it's now so overused that its nothing more than self-affirmation or half-baked happiness. 'Hey look I'm gonna eat this yummy coffee cake paid for by my daddy's credit card, VICTORY!' Yeah you can tell, I'm an amateur photographer and I'm annoyed to no end by the over use of V-sign.

As will be allured to later, political correctness reflects the self-righteous sensibility of American Left which is predominantly white. Many of my relatives calls themselves Chinese Americans despite (some of them) wholeheartedly wish to be Simply American (many of them didn't bother to learn spoken Chinese). But that cannot be... neither the Right nor the Left can be sincerely color-blind. Also being a Chinese is also un-viable. I'd much rather be an Asian or Oriental or (in an alternate lifetime) a Jew or Black than a Chinese American or Jewish American or Black American.

Here's the video, she does it throughout her whole speech. Of course I don't seriously think, she's doing the Hitler salute but you never know.

There's no Jewish lobby breathing down Japan's neck so Japanese people simply don't have the sensitivity towards anything Nazi. In fact it's fair to say most East Asians (Koreans, Chinese even Indians) don't really share Western (over?) sensitivity to Nazis and Anti-Semitic views. To us, yes a lot of Jews died at the hands of the Nazi, but a lot of other peoples also was murdered by a lot of yet-another peoples.

Modern Japan deeply admire only a few peoples in the world: American, German and French, roughly in that order (maybe the English a distant 4th). They do know that Nazis were in the wrong, but they admire the national spirits of that people. So it's common, when making an oath in a large competition (e.g. Sport Day in a high school, or here is a competition for sex videos), to raise your arm Nazi style making an oath on behave of all the competitors will play fairly and to devote their whole soul and body and honor and glory to the competition. That image is so powerful that even Chinese Communist Party adopts it at various times and occasions, despite ideologically Communists and Fascists are dead-set against each other.

So as an Asian reading this thread, and after participating in other forums about politics or current affairs, I feel deeply that we have very different sensitivities or sore spots. Westerner are unaware or (worse still) dismissive of our sore spots. Or even outright antagonistic about certain taboo, playing the freedom of expression card. We, OTOH, are amused or even mystified by your sensitivity over Nazi or Anti-Semitic symbolism. We may be anti-Nazis and sympathetic to the Jews, but what's the big fuss over borrowing a Nazi gesture to bring some pomp and circumstances to a promo gig for (CRYING OUT LOUD) pornography?

 

[CodeGeek]

[...]
So as an Asian reading this thread, and after participating in other forums about politics or current affairs, I feel deeply that we have very different sensitivities or sore spots. Westerner are unaware or (worse still) dismissive of our sore spots. Or even outright antagonistic about certain taboo, playing the freedom of expression card. We, OTOH, are amused or even mystified by your sensitivity over Nazi or Anti-Semitic symbolism. We may be anti-Nazis and sympathetic to the Jews, but what's the big fuss over borrowing a Nazi gesture to bring some pomp and circumstances to a promo gig for (CRYING OUT LOUD) pornography?

Would be interesting what the sensitivities or sore spots of Asians are. But maybe that's a little bit off-topc.

 

[ding73ding]

Would be interesting what the sensitivities or sore spots of Asians are. But maybe that's a little bit off-topc.

Quite. Quite. Akiba is a place for otaku chats, not political debate. I just point out that Asians, at least those traditions influenced by Confucius, believe that Respect trumps freedom of speech. In fact, true "freedom" (by Western standard) has a negative (if sometimes romantic) connotation associated with bandits, outlaws and exiles (ronins) rather than a right.

JAV offers humiliation genre in everywhich categories. You can easily find JAV title such as "Shrine Maiden Gang r***" (see a representative search here) or much less frequently Buddhist nun porn. But I can hardly remember any Christian-themed JAV and I am most sure there's no JAV (at least not mainstream JAV) that involve any other (major) religion. That is not at all because they respect foreign religions any more than they do their own national religion. But they respect other people's feelings. Buddhists renounce worldly temptations including sex, but they don't get offended by sex. So Buddhist nun porn is OK. Other religions feel very strongly (even violently) about sex or depiction of their Gods, icons and/or symbolism. So Japanese (and East Asians in general) would refrain from saying or depicting certain things out of respect. There's never any thought given to freedom or fairness.

Avoiding confrontation or even a "little trouble", is enough to give up defending one's freedom of expression, that's the Asian mindset.

So actually here's an social experiment. If you know the pressure point (I'd guess USA mainstream media is a pretty good pressure point for Japanese) you can get the Japanese all fussed up over Nazi-guilt. It's probably not hard to raise enough hell to get something like "Japanese porn stars pay tribute to Hitler in a salacious race to make the most shocking pornographic videos including S&M, r*** and torture" on US network (see how I sneak the word "race" in there smartly?). That will put a stop to the Hitler salutes, probably even in school sports day events.

 

[kermitfrog]

Ai Uehara's gesture has nothing to do with the Nazis. Raising one hand is an age-old symbol that has existed in many cultures long before the Nazis ever existed. Japanese people continue to use it because Nazis and Nazi imagery are not as prominent in Japanese culture. They are familiar with them but much less conscious. So for most things that the Nazis coopted (also including swastica) the existing cultural history has preempted association with Nazis and they continue to use it as they always have.

In fact raising your right hand when you take an oath is still prominent in American culture. From giving testimony in court to the president taking office, Americans raise their right hand as they promise something. Just not as high in the air, to avoid Nazi imagery.

Also, the real reason Japanese (and other east Asian) people flash the peace sign is because everybody else does it. It's just a thing people do, mostly because they think it looks cute. The article is an interesting take on how the trend might have started, although I don't know if it can be traced to just that one source. After all flashing the peace sign was very common in Western pop culture at the time it came into fashion. They probably would have seen it a lot.