The famous Indian head nod or wiggle

concoran

Afterthought:
By the way, head movement is not the only way of expressing
something in India. The 'tone' on the sentence also means a lot.
But since many of you don't understand any of Indian languages,
this is not relevent here.

Apana

e101g, Thanks for the head bobble smiley.

Apana

cyberhippie

In the first edition of the (may I say it) LP I remember there was a really funny piece in the introduction section covering Indians and their wobbly heads!!
Have any of you old heads still got the first edition, if so please look it up and share it with us!!
It will also serve as a reminder that the LP started life as a pretty good read!!

bijapuri

upon returnbing from my trip last year, my clients at the drug outpatient clinic I run in Watsonville were rather upset by the wobble. They deduced it was a bull$%!t detector, and gave it powers akin to the evil eye!

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lookit me!!!: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bijapuri/

Utube fuzzy logic:
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salima

i find myself doing it even as i read this forum!

e101g

Mike,

Are there any size/color standards for indiamike's smileys ?

Anth

I have not been to india yet, but i have experienced the head wobble once, although i didn't know it untill i read these threads..

my sister worked at an indian restaurant, and one night the owner invited our whole family (! and my sister didn't even go!!) to a family celebration - they were opening another section of the restaurant.

Anyway, I was talking to a middle aged indian man who was telling me that i must never ever go to india, because it is so horrible. haha. Anyway, he was describing the terrible poverty etc, and I was nodding along so to say 'mmm.. thats terrible'.

haha... but i felt very silly because whenever i nodded, he would start shaking his head.. must have looked quite strange.. sure looked strange to me. Now i know that this was the famous wobble!

indiamike

Usually around 30x30 pixels more or less (transparent background is good to).

Samsara

This would mean, he is overcome by emotion at the memory of how terrible it was and how lucky it is he escaped. "Oh yesss, oh yesss, never go there...bapre bapre...oh my god, you don't realise how terrible it is..."

suryakund

here's an blog entry expounding the uses of the Indian head wiggle:

http://vsequeira.blogspot.com/2005/0...ad-wiggle.html

I bet there are many IMers who've mastered the wiggle.

EXCERPT:
"So how does one wiggle?

The wiggle is fundamentally different from both the “yes” and “no” gestures used in the Western world. If you want to signify “yes” in the United States, you move your head up and down; to signify no, you move it in a horizontal motion from side to side.

Wiggling correctly is not easy for non-Indians..."

Indojingai

It's the same way in India:
yes - look up, then down (2 times)
No - shake head side to side. (1 or 2 times)

The 'kahani mein twist' is introduced by:
sometimes if you are speaking, and other people want to show affirmation/acceptance/acknowledgement/or just 'yeah i heard you' they might do half a 'No' as mentioned above.

This I have experienced first hand. And yeah it was funny ... the guy explaining technology got confused and asked... what (the hell) are you not able to understand.

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Dennis-M

Was always thinking that the wiggle is sort of slang, the wiggle for me is slang trough movement.

Slang is picked up after having spend time with local people, the wiggle you pick up the same way.

Tourists attempting to do the wiggle ??? ...

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traceyam

I didn't even notice I'd picked up the head wiggle until two British tourists pointed it out to me in Kerala!

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cyberhippie

Funnily enough I caught myself doing it at work today!
It must be all th PIOs I'm working with. A bit embarresing though as it was a guy from Ghana I was speaking to at the time, he looked a little perturbed.

04274108

Me and the Mrs. always do it when making decisions (what film to go see, pizza toppings, etc). Back here at home, we've caught a few locals looking long and hard at us when we do it. Like Traceyam, we don't even know that we do it.