Author Finds That Every Little Meaning Has Gesture of Its Own

Roger Axtell learned about local customs the hard, blushing, clammy way.

“I was in Djedaa (Chad) in 1967, leaving a building with a local businessman,” he explained. “He reached out and started holding my hand. Oh, boy. My palms sweated. Then I realized that in his country it was a sign of respect and a tribute to my wisdom.

“But there’s still a problem when he comes to Janesville, our little town in Wisconsin. We haven’t held hands going down the main street.”

Then there’s Johnny Carson, another scoff lore.

Hand on Fist

“You know when Johnny stands there, slapping one hand on top of his fist?” said Axtell, a self-schooled expert on one man’s panegyric being another country’s faux pas . “In Chile, it means the same as our impudent finger. I don’t imagine Johnny’s audience is very big in Chile.”

President Reagan, Axtell continued, is another prominent American who apparently isn’t up on the manners and manual messages of elsewhere.

In Geneva last month, en route to a summit session, Reagan gave a two-part reply to a newsman’s question. Verbally, he said: “Hell, no.” Visually, and with cameras memorializing the miscue, he displayed two fingers. With the back of the hand toward cameramen and questioner. A Churchillian salute, in sens reverse , as it were.

And in the sign language of most British streets and motor ways, knows Axtell, that duplicates exactly what Johnny Carson’s flourish has been saying to Santiago.

Regular Habit

“I didn’t know that,” a White House spokesman said. “That’s interesting.”

He explained that President Reagan does indeed have a regular habit of illustrating answers with a two-digit wave, a descending salute that starts with the fingertips touching his forehead. Then Reagan doesn’t know the Anglo-Saxon roots of the final gesture and he wasn’t offering advice to the media?

“I’m sure that’s not what the President intended,” the spokesman said.

All of which, Axtell continued, amply proves the point that when in Rome do precisely what Romans do. But should you gaffe, don’t apologize with a bunch of chrysanthemums. In Italy, they’re used only at funerals.

Axtell is vice president of marketing for the Parker Pen Co., a button-down Willie Lowman whose selling career goes back to fountain pens and blue-black ink. He supervises sales offices in 154 countries where, since 1902, people have been buying Parkers (that generic reference and international honor standing alongside Hoovers and Thermos flasks) because the late George S. Parker once said: “Our pens write in any language.”

True. But salesman don’t. Nor did Axtell when he first began selling overseas and started bleeping himself for world-class blunders and bloopers.

Toast in Middle

In Hong Kong . . . he blew his official toast and a 10-course dinner. How was he to know that toasts begin in the middle of the meal and right after the shark fin soup?

In China . . . he pored through a dictionary and a limited vocabulary for an after-dinner thank-you. He wanted to flatter his hosts, to tell them their meal was so ample he must loosen his belt. It came out as: “The girth of this donkey’s saddle is loose.”

In the South of France . . . after examining a delightful hotel room, Axtell showed his satisfaction by flashing that good ol’ Yankee high sign, forefinger and thumb in a circle. “Terribly sorry,” the manager said, “we’ll show you another room.”

And in Cairo, in the mid-’60s, Axtell sat with seven Egyptians on overstuffed cushions on marble floors. They were in robes. He was in a suit. The wooden mouthpiece of the hookah passed around the group. No women trespassed this citadel of all-male business. No alcohol. The emotional Arabic of Gamal Abdel Nasser roiled from a radio.

Axtell had two thoughts. This was no time for social boo-boos. This was a perfect time to start taking notes for the next time.

“For how you behave in other people’s countries reflects on more than you alone,” he said. “It also brightens, or dims, the image of where you come from and whom you work for. The Ugly American about whom we used to read so much may be dead. But here and there, the ghost still wobbles out of the closet.”

Now Axtell has compiled a ghost buster. It’s “Do’s and Taboos Around the World,” a vehicle for the tips, anecdotes and advice of more than 500 veteran travelers who have mastered the science of saying ohb-ri-gah-doe (Portuguese for thank you) with feet in their mouths.

Parker Pen has underwritten (pun intended) the publishing costs, also Axtell’s expenses as he travels the lecture and talk-show circuit as an Emily Post for those who might leave home without it. Decorum, that is.

To the casual traveler, of course, a series of flubs risks nothing more than personal embarrassment and a mild heehaw against America. But to a diplomat, it could blow the talks. To a businessman, it’s all the difference between no commission and the sale of 50,000 shower goggles. So, too often, he’ll range no farther than Bakersfield.

“For being one of the largest nations in the world, we’re very insular,” stated Axtell. “We’ve lost a lot of our ethnicity and we don’t travel well as a result.

“The U.S. businessman who should be going overseas is afraid of the unknown . . . not knowing shipping procedures, the language, documents or currency. I find that most Americans are insecure, self-conscious, apprehensive when traveling abroad . . . and a lot has to do with a fear of being embarrassed by making a mistake.

“A psychologist would immediately penetrate that as a form of xenophobia.”

Yet, he believes, there’s an ambivalence developing as the situation changes.

Young Americans are traveling farther, thanks to air fare wars, Sir Freddie Laker, student exchanges and military service.

And what they are discovering abroad is emerging over here and confirms the mingling. “Masterpiece Theater.” Perrier. And abbraccio , men embracing, until hugging so customary for the Adamolis of Treviso has become almost trendy among the Smiths of Santa Monica.

“But the businessman hasn’t been following the lead of the student,” mourned Axtell. “Only 10% of American businesses are involved in exports or international trade. . . . There’s no doubt that our uncertainty about foreign travel has a bearing on our trade deficit.”

Axtell’s book (45,000 printed and available from Parker Pen Co., One Parker Place, Janesville, Wis. 53547; hardcover $14.95 and $7.95 in paperback) is by no means the definitive volume on international behavior. “Some will say: ‘Oh, but that gesture or that practice may apply in the north of that country, but not in the south.’ And they may be right.

Cultural Veneer

“What I’m talking about is the cultural veneer, what we first encounter in traveling abroad. I’m trying to point out that although they (customs) seem weird and odd, it’s fun to find out about them. And rewarding because when you cut through that layer you find people--although this sounds trite--are very much alike with similar interests and desires.”

And critical to acceptance, Axtell adds, is the realization that Americans are as foreign as the next foreigner.

Why be appalled by bear’s paw soup in China and sheep’s eyes in Saudi Arabia? Americans eat corn that most countries feed to their pigs.

Here it’s a three-martini happy hour. There it’s a little wine. We have breakfast meetings. They despise business lunches. Only in America do we immediately ask what a person does for a living, presume everyone speaks English, wear old school ties when one has not attended the old school and make conversation dominated by sporting colloquialisms.

Not getting to first base. The whole nine yards. Play ball with me. And then we ask for ballpark figures and fly by the seat of our pants while running a dog and pony show that could go down the tubes. Get the drift? 10-4?

American usage or misuse of the English language, according to Axtell, has produced some classics. In 1976, an American patent attorney was traveling in China. He was asked about the export potential for a Chinese sewing machine and its suggested brand name--the Ordinary Sewing Machine. The attorney winced and explained that “ordinary” translated to “common.” If that be the case, asked the Chinese, why do Americans have the Standard Oil Co. The attorney winced again.

From jargon--sometimes known as the tongue without a brain-- Axtell’s book moves to gestures.

A Big Zero

What is the OK sign in the United States means a big zero in France. In Brazil it’s yet another version of vulgarity. In Britain they tap the side of their noses with one finger to indicate confidentiality. Blinking at a person in Taiwan is considered impolite.

And when appreciating a woman, the American lifts his eyebrows, the Italian presses his forefinger into his cheek and rotates it, the Greek strokes his cheek, the Brazilian puts an imaginary telescope to his eye, the Frenchman kisses his fingertips and the Arab grasps his beard.

In Bulgaria a nod means no and a shake of the head means yes. In Spain it is expected that guests be 30 minutes late for dinner but precisely on time for the bullfights. It’s not wise to discuss California wines in France.

Food abroad, Axtell reports, is a continuing problem.

He recalls the family-planning adviser who happened to be visiting an emerging African country the one month gorilla meat was in season.

“As the village guest of honor, she was served a choice cut,” he said. “Proudly, a platter of the usual mashed yam was placed before her--but with a roast gorilla hand thrusting artfully up from the center.”

Apart from the next plane home, is there a polite way out?

No, Axtell says. “It helps, though, to slice whatever the item is very thin. This way, you minimize the texture--gristly, slimy--and the reminder of whence it came. Or swallow it quickly.”

American businesspersons abroad, Axtell advises, should also be aware that few countries share our sense of sexual equality.

They have begun to accept that the next American they meet in a three-piece suit might also be wearing high heels. But, Axtell warns, once the dressed-for-success woman has concluded the day’s business, reputations hinge “not so much on what you do but on what it looks as if you might do.” Consider these caveats. . . .

--Choose hotel-room service over drinking or eating out alone. Or dine out with female companions.

--Don’t give male colleagues gifts unless they obviously are earmarked for the home or children.

--If you are or were married, use a “Mrs.” even if you use Ms. or nothing at all at home.

“Above all, do not date anyone you are there to do business with,” he said. “If he is irresistible, wait until he comes over here.”

Back to that subject of business gifts. So much, Axtell emphasized, depends on the culture. Seedlings in Panama, cookies in Taiwan and whiskey in New Zealand are do’s. A clock (another funereal reminder) is taboo in China.

“Pens are safe, safe, safe,” Axtell said. Of course.