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The Traveller World Guide | Best Travel Tips and Vacation.

Body Language Differences Across the World

Travel Tips - Ross French - April 21, 2011

shy_guy

By: Maria Climent Huguet
Maria Climent is a 26-year-old Catalan lady. After studying translation, she decided her life was odd enough to became a humor scriptwriter and by default, a blogger. This is how she’s now a mother of no one and a better person. She also likes to cook!

Last night I was talking to my flatmate and realized that, although she is a very open and expressive person, when she talks about personal things, like her aspirations in life, or self-confidence she adopted a gesture of defence; arms and legs crossed, what can be understood as feeling uncomfortable or embarrassed when talking about herself.

And the thing is that body language says a lot about ourselves and most of the time we do not even realize it. So, it would be quite useful to know both, what messages are we sending to others and what messages others sending to us, especially while travelling.

–     Eye contact, which is considered positive in Western cultures, is regarded as rude or sassy in other cultures like traditional regions of Japanese, Chinese and some areas in the Caribbean, especially when done from youngsters to elderly, and women to men.

While the “thumbs-up” gesture means that something is OK, or that we like it in Western culture, it is rude in Arab countries where it is rude to use the left hand to eat as well.

–     The act of touching one another when talking is very uncommon in Japan, where people do not usually touch in public in the same way Latin or Mediterranean cultures do.

And now, let’s just take a look at our everyday life:

Imagine you have one of the apartments in Rome for a week and every time you meet the guy who is staying in the apartment next door in the lift, he smiles timidly, cannot keep eye contact, talks quickly and low, his hands are sweating, girl, he wants you! Bow chica wo wow!

shy_guy

Watch out when you are talking to someone who is not looking at you all, I mean, if you see that person is keeps looking at the door of that bar, or nods all the time with the look lost and from time to time they say ”yeah”, they’re probably not very interested in your story. It’s surprising when you do this to others, how they don’t notice you want OUT of this conversation.
reading-female-body-language
And a useful tip: we can kind of fake our body gesture to seduce other people, to make them feel better. How? Just look them at the eyes; maybe touch their arm, to make them feel confident, a kind smile, and paused voice and you’ll have them at your feet. But be sharp! There is nothing sadder than a bad actor.

If you feel like starting to put it into practice maybe it’s a good idea to rent one of the Rome apartments and see who’s your new neighbour.

Tags | across the world, body language, cultures, eye contact
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2 Comments

  • Dylan April 22, 2011 at 2:58 PM

    I ended up in a petrol station outside of Madrid during one of my hitchhiking adventures: we were futilely trying to get a ride south to no avail. We had to get through the night sleeping in the restaurant area and, succumbing to demoralisation, we gave in and decided to head back into the nearest town and take a rest day. A Romanian dude was working at the station on nightshift and he gave us a ride. Hotels weren’t letting us check in till after noon (we got there at 8am) so he took us back to his place, left us in the lounge and went for the sack. When he got up he and his Romanian flatmate took us out for food and proceeded to pay for it. We protested. At which point they tapped their cheeks with their index finger – apparently it meant ‘you’re hurting my feelings’. Top class these guys were.

    Reply
    • Hogga April 23, 2011 at 9:56 AM

      dude that’s crazy!

      Reply

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    Ross French grew up outside Toronto, blah blah… he went to the University of Western Ontario for fine arts and like any degree, has since done nothing in that field. More seriously, Ross French is a travel junkie & a tech nerd with a slightly concerning love for beer & wine. he a has a great awareness of life outside the 9-5 and hopes to aspire to be a hammock bum one day.

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