One of my first impressions of the Japanese people as I was growing up was that they love photography and always make the “peace” sign when getting their picture taken, which was one of those rare times when a stereotype turned out to be completely true. The origin of the ubiquitous Japanese pose is not 100% clear. It could have come from the Winston Churchill’s famous “V for victory,” or (according to another theory) from a 1972 TV commercial for a Konica camera in which an actor ad-libbed a peace sign at the end, which happened to resonate with viewers. Supposedly, there are different variations on how Japanese (specifically females) will perform the gesture, depending on what era they come from. Women in their 40s will make a fairly orthodox peace sign, while ones in their 30s grew up being told the gesture was stupid by their parents, and thus tend to make shy “V” gestures that are less noticeable. Japanese women in their late 20s make “double peace” signs near their chin in a compact but cute gesture born from the popularity of “Purikura” photo booths in the 1990s, while the trend among the youngest Japanese females is “reverse peace,” done with the palm facing towards the person making the gesture. Which happens to be a rude gesture in much of the U.K., Australia and New Zealand…oops.
Japanese girls do “peace” differently according to age.
