The culprit: Italian hand gestures

In Italy, it’s very common to still have specialty shops such as pastry shops, bread shops, pasta shops, fruit shops and I think you get the picture.

This morning I was in a rush but needed to go to the fruit and vegetable shop near the house.  It’s a one man show and he’s often very social with his customers but very slow.  Today was one of those days I needed him not to be slow and when I saw there was only one person ahead of me I was relieved.

After waiting for 5 minutes, the lady in front of me told him “Good, now we are done with the fruits, let’s look at the vegetables”.  In my mind, I was thinking “Oh gosh, this is going to take longer than expected”.  Like with everything else in Rome,  I remained patient because that’s the only way to keep sane here.  As I continued to observe their interaction, her selecting which vegetables to buy and him putting them into packages, I realized he was so slow because he couldn’t talk and do things at the same time.

For example, while telling her about this particular type of red onions from Tropea, he  couldn’t seem to weigh the other vegetables or put them in the bags.  I keep thinking he wasn’t a multi-tasking person but then  it dawned on me why.  It was because when he talked, he not only communicating with words but also with his hands which were flying everywhere!

It was defnitely an “Ah-Ha” moment for me because yesterday I saw a show on how Italians use hand gestures to communicate, I thought it was slightly exaggerated.  However, after this realization, I have to agree that Italians definitely communicate with the whole body i.e.  eye gestures, body gestures and of course their ever famous hand gestures.

Here are a few videos on Italian hand gestures as demonstrated by friends: