Vietnamese Youth and Peace Sign
From: ryan nelson <sociolgst@yahoo.com>
Reply-To: sociolgst@yahoo.com, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
Date: Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 6:39 PM
Might anyone be able to provide brief commentary or have knowledge of literature documenting history and current socialization surrounding two fingered peace sign gesture so often delivered by Vietnamese children when encountering foreigners? The fond gesture I’ve viewed countless times amidst posed clump of Spiderman and Power Rangers tank top clad children with skinny, stretched branches of tanned arms and movie star smiles. The origins I imagine stem from the American War era. Having traveled extensively only in Khanh Hoa Province my curiosity desires clarification on genesis and possible regional differences. Do children in northern Viet Nam sport the peace sign with such frequency as those in KHP? Are youths aware of its origins and meaning or do they merely believe it to be an equivalent to a hand wave hello?
Peace
Ryan Nelson
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From: dfp <mail@aryador.de>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 8:52 PM
I might be wrong and there is more to it, but as far as I know, the "V"-sign has developed in whole Asia into some sort of "hello". It has become a very, very frequent gesture for young Asian people to pose on pictures. If you go on a trip with Vietnamese teenagers, they will make this "V"-sign every time they feel a camera is pointed on them. It's the same with Korean and Japanese teens, as far as I have experienced it.
I don't see any specific connection to the Vietnam War. Rather to Asian pop-culture.
David
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From: Jim Cobbe <jcobbe@fsu.edu>
Reply-To: jcobbe@fsu.edu, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: sociolgst@yahoo.com, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 11:12 PM
Interesting. In Da Nang, I've not noticed kids doing it to foreigners, but young people [university students and those in their twenties] do it all the time in photos. I have no idea of the origin, but I don't think I've taken a photo of colleagues or students without at least one making the V-sign [which to a Brit can have very different connotations, depending on the orientation of the hand].
--
Professor Jim Cobbe
AY 2007-08: Fulbright Scholar,
Đại Học Kinh Tế Đà Nẵng
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From: Liam C Kelley <liam@hawaii.edu>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: jcobbe@fsu.edu, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Tue, Jun 17, 2008 at 11:59 PM
Dear List,
This is one of those questions that it simply too important to pass up. I would like to say that this practice began in Japan, but perhaps it developed in multiple locations. In the case of Japan, however, there are a few "events" which people point to. General MacArthur reportedly gave the v for victory sign when he was in Japan. Then in the 1960s, students protesting the government used that symbol (following American usage at the time?). In 1972, American figure skater, Janet Lynn, fell in the Sapporo Olympics and then after her program she apparently gave a peace sign to indicate that everthing was ok (or something like that). This was very famous at the time. And last but not least, (in the 1970s?) a Japanese actor, Inoue Jun, made a camera commercial in which he posed making the peace/victory sign. My guess would be that this last one is what really got the practice going.
So in Japan there are several events that people point to, and they seem to fit the photographic history. I could be wrong, but I haven't seen a lot of pictures from the 50s/60s with Japanese making the peace/victory sign. However, by the 1980s it appears to have become genetically ingrained, which the above events go a long ways towards explaining.
Why this is the case pretty much all over the rest of Asia, however, is a mystery to me. Did it spead from Japan somehow? Were there similar chains of events that made this practice popular in other places? When did people in Vietnam start doing this? There must be people on this list who have a sense of that. In any case, if we can figure this one out, as well as where rock/paper/scissors came from, then we will have solved the two major remaining mysteries of the modern world.
Liam Kelley
U. of Hawaii
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From: Tobias RETTIG <tobiasrettig@smu.edu.sg>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 1:25 AM
My feeling is that it started out in Japan and then spread to other countries in the Asia region, but I cannot back this up with any serious evidence.
Tobias
SMU, Singapore
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From: Hai Le <hai.le@bbc.co.uk>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: sociolgst@yahoo.com, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 3:37 AM
As I knew, southern VCs (some of them from my family) showed/promoted their two fingers as a hope/promise of two year waiting/returning for peace process after the 1954 convention
V
Hai.
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From: martin weil <envchem1@yahoo.co.uk>
Reply-To: envchem1@yahoo.co.uk, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 4:32 AM
I would guess that it has been heavly influenced by Japanese and Korean media - whose films and TV are readily viewable with Vietamese voiceovers from a plethora of internet sites and pirated CDs!
Rgsd
Martin
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From: Joe Hannah <jhannah@u.washington.edu>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 11:00 AM
The explanation I have been told is that it started among Viet Kieu who found the fact that the American "hi" and the Vietnamese "2" ("hai") too cute to pass up. So often when holding up two fingers the Vietnamese kid will say "hai" and giggle. What could be more ridiculous than greeting someone by saying "2?"
Or so I'm told...
Cheers,
Joe Hannah
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From: Hoang t. Dieu-Hien <dieuhien@u.washington.edu>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: envchem1@yahoo.co.uk, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 11:01 AM
I do not know the origin of the use of the sign in Vietnam or throughout Asia or how it was propagated. However, I do have a personal anecdotal experience to share.
I first encounter the use of the sign in 1981 in California. Then I had just immigrated to the U.S. the previous year. When I encountered the sign I had very little American cultural knowledge and only enough English to sit through Calculus and ESL courses in college (the Calculus was just a review of what I'd already learned in high school in VN). That year, on the first day of Tet, my first Tet in the U.S., at the college where I was attending, the Vietnamese students who arrived in the US in 1975 took the day off to commemorate our New Year. (Those of us who were fresh off the boat did not feel we could afford any day off that was not official.) I was sitting in my calculus class when the students who took the day off went pass my classroom, looked in and raised their hand with the two fingers forming a V. I smiled at them in recognition and thought how clever they were to combine the Vietnamese language with English to have a secret hand gesture for "hi."
To me, the hand gesture signified "hai", the number 2 in Vietnamese. To use it to say "hi" in English was brilliant, I thought. At the time, I was unaware of the meaning of the sign to revolutionary forces in Vietnam. Later, I was mystified to see that sign made on television by non-Vietnamese. Only then did I learn that the sign meant victory, or peace, depending on context and the person using it.
That's how I started to use the sign to say "hi" to other Vietnamese Americans. I never asked other Vietnamese, abroad and in Vietnam, what the symbol meant to them or why they were using it. Don't think that all shared the same thinking or reasoning as I did, but would be interested to know.
Of course, how the sign became popular throughout Asia would be a different story altogether.
Look forward to hear more from others.
Peace,
Hien
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From: David Marr <dgm405@coombs.anu.edu.au>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: envchem1@yahoo.co.uk, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 4:50 PM
When Churchill first used the V sign (palm outward) it meant Victory. And I suspect MacArthur used it likewise. So when and where did the meaning change to Peace?
As for today's young Asians, I doubt if peace comes to mind when saluting in this fashion. It's simply a fashionable way of waving.
David Marr
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From: Jim Cobbe <jcobbe@fsu.edu>
Reply-To: jcobbe@fsu.edu, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 5:05 PM
Simplification of the CND [semaphore letters imposed on each other, the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament symbol] adopted by US Vietnam era war protesters, I think.
David Marr wrote:
When Churchill first used the V sign (palm outward) it meant Victory. And I suspect MacArthur used it likewise. So when and where did the meaning change to Peace?
As for today's young Asians, I doubt if peace comes to mind when saluting in this fashion. It's simply a fashionable way of waving.
David Marr
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From: Daniel C. Tsang <dtsang@uci.edu>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 5:13 PM
Here is what Wikipedia says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_sign#Vietnam_War.2C_victory_and_peace
V sign
.......................
Vietnam War, victory and peace
Nixon departing the White House on August 9, 1974
U.S. President Richard Nixon used it to signal victory, an act which became one of his best-known trademarks. He also used it on his departure from public office following his resignation in 1974.
A similar sign was used in protests against the Vietnam War (and subsequent anti-war protests) and by the counterculture as a sign of peace, including the sense of not war. Because the hippies of the day often flashed this sign (palm out) while vocalizing "Peace", it became popularly known (through association) as the peace sign.[21]
[edit] East Asia and the V sign in Photographs
During the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, figure skater Janet Lynn stumbled into Japanese pop culture when she fell during a free-skate period—but continued to smile even as she sat on the ice. Though she placed only third in the actual competition, her cheerful diligence and indefatigability resonated with many Japanese viewers, making her an overnight celebrity in Japan. Afterwards, Lynn (a peace activist) was repeatedly seen flashing the V sign in the Japanese media. Though the V sign was known of in Japan prior to Lynn's use of it there (from the post-WWII Allied occupation of Japan), she is credited by some Japanese for having popularized its use in amateur photographs.[21] According to the other theory (actually present in the Japanese version of this entry), the V sign was popularized by the actor and singer Jun Inoue, who showed it the Conica photo camera commercial in 1972.
Through the 1970s and 1980s in Japan, the V sign was often accompanied by a vocalization: "piisu!" This gairaigo exclamation, which stood for "peace", has since fallen into disuse, though the V sign itself remains steadfastly popular. It is especially popular in photography, as it is a favorite pose of both teens and adults - in Japan, China and elsewhere in Asia.[citation needed]
Another possible explanation for the popularity (and perhaps emergence) of the sign in Japan is that people (usually children) are asked to answer the question Ichi tasu ichi wa? (meaning "One plus one equals?") whose answer is ni ("two"). Being a Japanese equivalent of saying Cheese, the ee sound makes the photographed ones appear as smiling on the photos. Thus, besides saying "two", they are also giving the answer using two fingers.
The V sign is also commonly used in anime and Japanese live-action shows.[citation needed] When characters show this sign, it is often accompanied by an exclamation of "Vui!" (pronounced /vɯi/ or /bɯi/), an approximation of the English pronunciation "vee" which differentiates it from "bii", the Japanese name of the letter B (as many Japanese speakers hear the voiced labiodental fricative as being the same as the voiced bilabial plosive, see Engrish). A more common phrase is "kachi" which means victory (V for Victory) or luck. Several anime characters incorporate the V sign into their poses, including Ash Ketchum of Pokémon fame, both Sailor Moon and Sailor V, as well as video game characters such as Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Chun-Li, and Ling Xiaoyu from the Tekken series.[citation needed]
Due to Japanese cultural influences in the region[citation needed], the V sign in photographs has become popular with young people throughout East Asia and Southeast Asia.[citation needed]
In the Philippines, the popularity of the use of the "V" sign in photographs is mostly done as a mockery of its popularity and usage by their Asian neighbors (in particular, of characters in soap operas having their pictures taken). The "V" sign usually stands for "peace" in the Filipino context and is thus a cause for bewilderment and amusement when seen on Asian commercials, soap operas, and other media. When a person uses the "V" sign in the same manner as it is used in photographs by other Asian countries, it is mostly an attempt to be cute or funny in the photograph. When putting the "V" sign on top a person's head, it usually is done to comically "demonize" that person rather than just give that person Bunny ears.[citation needed]
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From: Jim Cobbe <jcobbe@fsu.edu>
Reply-To: jcobbe@fsu.edu, Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Wed, Jun 18, 2008 at 8:45 PM
I asked a group of students at Đại Học Kinh Tế Đà Nẵng this morning what the V-sign meant to them; they all [8 of them] agreed it meant 'Hi = Hai' -- although two also said that in Japan it meant 'Peace.' None of them had any idea when or how it started in Viet Nam.
--
Professor Jim Cobbe
AY 2007-08: Fulbright Scholar, Đại Học Kinh Tế Đà Nẵng
71 Ngu Hanh Son, TP Đà Nẵng
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From: ryan nelson <sociolgst@yahoo.com>
Date: Jun 19, 2008 2:32 PM
Subject: Re: [Vsg] Curiouser and Curiouser: Tumbling Further Down the Rabbit's Hole
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
While tumbling further down the rabbit’s hole I encountered through scholarly literature an interesting but possibly overstated account explaining accidental U.S. invention of v/peace sign and its adoption by some counter-culture minded individuals during Vietnam War era. From what I’ve gathered, similar to the mystery behind Asian invention, adoption, evolution and cultural fusion of v/peace sign, origin of U.S. emblem holds unknown elements as well. According to one account, that of free frame of reference lovin’ Digger Emmett Grogan, upon his release from short 1966 detainment he, in front of news photographer, delivered with derogatory intention vulgar British gesture involving two fingers (similar to middle finger) impulsively. His image and gesture adorning newspaper the next day, some friends, believing incorrectly the emblem to be a promotion of “victory” for the counter-culture, adopted it (Holsinger 1999: 408).
Holsinger, Paul M. War and American Popular Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. 1999. Greenwood Publishing.
<http://books.google.com/books?id=Oe4AOVHkJ9oC&pg=RA1-PA408&dq=v+sign+peace+sign+vietnam&as_brr=3&sig=MCftHBrrxijhb9Rcuedqzz_6alg>.
For more v/peace sign U.S. Cold War era history, most of which backed by no credible evidence, view DeBenedetti, Charles, and Charles Chatfield. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse Univ. Press, 1990, 44.
Peace
Ryan Nelson
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From: jkirk <jkirk@spro.net>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 8:27 PM
Just found this photo in a blog, online, of a young hill woman giving the V sign to the fellow who was trekking in the Sapa area.
Joanna Kirkpatrick
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From: Nakamura Rie <rnakamura62@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Sun, Jun 22, 2008 at 8:49 PM
Attachments: VN--young person V sign.jpg
In Japan when we give V (peace) sign we show the other side of a hand (palm side). Rie ________________________________ > From: jkirk@spro.net > To: vsg@u.washington.edu > Subject: RE: [Vsg] Curiouser and Curiouser: Vietnamese Youths and the PeaceSign > Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2008 21:27:32 -0600 > > Just found this photo in a blog, online, of a young hill woman giving the V sign to the fellow who was trekking in the Sapa area. > Joanna Kirkpatrick > > [
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From: lawrence driscoll <lawdri@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 9:21 AM
Hi Rie and list:
Yes, I think this is an anomaly when it comes to the V sign. It almost always means two in the U.S..
But I'd ask that you consider that the V sign, as a sign of peace, was flashed by many thousands of American soldiers serving in Vietnam, especially after their contemporaries back home used it so frequently in campus and urban demonstrations in the late '60's, early '70s.
If I might suggest another example of manufacturing communication symbols, the term "mamasan" was created during the Japanese occupation in the late '40s, and again adopted by thousand of U. S. soldiers. Subsequently this essential term for cross-cultural communication, found its way to Korea and later to Vietnam, and beyond.
Peace wishes,
Lawrence Driscoll
New Jersey, USA
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From: jkirk <jkirk@spro.net>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 5:29 PM
I recall someone on the list pointed out ealier on that the sign,
as flashed by the woman whose photo I sent-- with back of the
hand facing viewer-- has a derogatory gesture significatio in
U.K. If flashed palm forward, it's the peace sign. Winston
Churchill always flashed this gesture palm forward.
Cheers, Joanna K.
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From: lawrence driscoll <lawdri@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Date: Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 8:28 AM
Hello again,
If I might qualify my recent post regarding the V sign. It wasn't my intention to show any gender bias......, lest the male quarter feel slighted :). I could have as easily cited the example of "papasan".
But communincation with mothers is so much more important for the troops. Why were it not for their care and attention toward soldiers, in things like laundering and cooking, those soldiers might not have survived. As for today, with the increase in papasan involvement in these tasks, it just isn't the same level of service.
Lawrence