The word China in Chinese sign.

Is now our sign for China. And it's the sign for China for a lot of other countries too. The cool ones. And when you see the signs used by countries who haven't gotten with the program it makes you go WTF? How rude.

No really, what are you thinking, France? You know that's very rude. They indicate slanted eyes. Other countries indicate a long stringy mustache, caricatures of Chinese people. The same with Japan.

This is how Chinese refer to themselves.  They're touching the place of buttons on a traditional Chinese garment, both shoulders then straight down one side. It's an elegant sign but it takes like four touches. And only a few in the dictionary do it correctly. They get the buttons in the wrong places.

When these signs for countries were established there wasn't that much travel between countries. But since then deaf have traveled extensively, this occurred in my lifetime, like everyone else, so once in China they asked them how they refer to themselves, and out of graciousness dropped the reference to slanted eyes and adopted their reference to traditional Chinese dress.

Same thing with Japan. Eyes again, J at the the corner of the eye for Japan, and C at the corner of the eye for China. But now that seems rude. It IS rude.

I feel so stupid, so old-fashion for using those signs. I'm like Archie Bunker in ASL. Oh no, I must get with the program and shape up. I want to be with the cool kids.

I really like how Japanese refer to themselves. It's simple and graphically beautiful as their flag. I mentioned this before, and here it is again. It's perfectly Japanese. Their sign for themselves indicates their island, but you know their island is actually 4 major islands and a hundred smaller islands that form a dotted archipelago. The sign perfectly flat while their terrain is mountainous.  The sign they use hardly exists, the sign hardly shows, and it's rarely formed correctly. You put both thumbs together and both index fingers, leaving a space, then pull them apart and pinch them together as you go, to form a flat football shape in the air, as a flattened football floating on water. As simplified as graphically possible. Pure Japanese in spirit. That's why I like it. Like the dot on their flag.

But most people form the sign poorly with the points pulled upward, unmindful they're showing an island and instead show a hammock or a banana.

Check it out on Spread the Sign. You must enter China or Japan in the search box then click on the flag of a country. A short video appears demonstrating how that sign is done in that country.

I'm glad our deaf travel. I'm glad our deaf adopted the country's own sign. It shows that they're gracious people collectively. They're concerned for the feelings of others. It was how they had a good time when they traveled. They intermingled and got right down to business.

Then why don't they do this with Korea? Their motion refers to a bobbed haircut. Maybe they did. Korea is not represented on Spread the Sign. Wait a second, [korean sign language]

See, this here is what we call semiotics. It's the study of signs and signals. But it's also semantics because these symbols are words. This is important for things like traffic and international airports. You want graphics that are universally recognizable. A lot of work goes into designing these signs that you see everywhere. And a very good deal of humor arises from it. People like to make one little change with a pen to signs that attempt to communicate across languages to make them say something else, like the heat waves drawn to show heat from blowdryers in public bathrooms changed to bacon.

Oh. Our sign for Korea is based on Korea's sign for Korea. This young woman with the perfectly natural red hair shows it on YouTube.

Ew, she's good. Fun to watch. Ugh, the music must be tuned off. She's textbook correct for the American signs and that gives me confidence her Korean signs are correct too. And it makes you wonder what  her situation was that brought abut this unique specialty. Every single person I meet through sign language asks me about what my situation was that caused me to learn, and now I see why. She makes me curious.

I'm glad I looked that up because it was bothering me. But knowing it's actually Korean removes the bother.

And I bet all those countries have their own sign for themselves.

One time I was sitting on a boat used mostly by locals to get to from Cancun to Isla Mujeres. Most Americans take the hydrofoil boat that speeds there. This boat was a huge wobbly old wooden clunker. Some people were carrying wooden cages with chickens inside them. Totally low class. I was sitting way up on the top watching activity on the pier, one man was loaded with goods to sell to tourists on the island and another guy was his brother. Apparently. They spoke to each other using an agitated frenetic sign language and I sat up there thinking, oh goodie gumdrops, my two favorite things together, Spanish and sign language, so I watched. And not just regular watched, I WATCHED, I penetrated their motions, I studied every single movement. Nothing got past me. I saw everything. And I couldn't make sense of one single word. It was the most frustrating thing of the whole trip. It made me feel hopeless and inadequate. I was so bummed out. I didn't see anything that could be any simple fundamental word like, eat, house, dog, walk, meet, return, money, mother, friend, house, boat, water. Nothing. Nothing! Not one single thing. Not even a letter or number. Nothing. Void. Nil set.

And I thought, oh man, this whole studying people is bogus. I get nothing. I give up.