According to Spoon & Tamago, peace signs (or “the peesu”
) is going out of fashion in Japan and photographees are starting to favor a generic thumbs up instead.
…Definitely a bit of a bummer if that’s true, but I’d imagine that it would take quite a loooong while for the rest of Asia to phase out the infamous peesu.
Reading the Spoon & Tamago post definitely raised a more interesting question though: WHY do Asians like peacing out in photos so much? A bit of googling yielded this post from Stuff Asian People Like on the peace sign:
To show that they are indeed happy, asians outline their grinning chins with a “V” sign to draw attention away from their non-existant eyes. They also wouldn’t ever want to yell something while taking a picture because it would draw more attention to them. However, Asians are always stoked when a photo opp arises. In these situations, asians, instead of using America’s ludicrously awkward phrase, “Cheese,” will use the peace sign to show that they are indeed present in the photograph.
Not at all sure if I agree with that as an Asian, but since I don’t have any better explanations for this mysterious phenomenon, I shall leave the peesu to future ponderings…
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