# Japanese people making V sign in photos

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-people-making-v-sign-in-photos/534365>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 30, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-people-making-v-sign-in-photos/534365 "2010-03-30T19:12:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![RedSwinglineOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a9adbd/32.png) [@RedSwinglineOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedSwinglineOne)\
**Post date:** [June 29, 2012, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-people-making-v-sign-in-photos/534365/41 "2012-06-29T16:13:13Z")

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What I heard a few years ago but can’t find a cite for now, (maybe somebody can confirm or deny) is that some cultures consider it rude to take ‘candid’ photos of people, so the ‘v’ became a way to signal that the subject is ready and willing to be photographed.

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**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\
**Post date:** [June 29, 2012, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-people-making-v-sign-in-photos/534365/42 "2012-06-29T18:47:55Z")

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> [@even\_sven](#):
>
> Asian photo culture is pretty interesting and notably different than our own.
> 
> Self-portraits are the way to go. People- especially young women- will gladly show you 100,000,000 photos of themselves. They don’t do a lot of the “my friends acting wacky” or “documenting my family party” or “famous stuff I saw but am not posing in front of” that we’d expect. It’s mostly about the self portrait. Even travel photos are “me in front of a museum, me in front of a statue, me in front of the ocean” etc.

While it’s obviously true that Asian photo culture is pretty (vastly) different, I’ve seen an inane tendency in Westerners as well to just pose in front of any physical object that you visit while on holiday. The worst example of this I saw was when I visited Auschwitz almost ten years ago, and I saw people having their picture taken with the _Arbeit macht frei_ sign :dubious:

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**Author:** ![InternetLegend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/internetlegend/32/13154_2.png) [@InternetLegend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InternetLegend)\
**Post date:** [June 29, 2012, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/japanese-people-making-v-sign-in-photos/534365/43 "2012-06-29T19:49:13Z")

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> [@Svejk\_1](#):
>
> While it’s obviously true that Asian photo culture is pretty (vastly) different, I’ve seen an inane tendency in Westerners as well to just pose in front of any physical object that you visit while on holiday. The worst example of this I saw was when I visited Auschwitz almost ten years ago, and I saw people having their picture taken with the _Arbeit macht frei_ sign :dubious:

Tell me they weren’t grinning and making the “V” sign.

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