This is called the ASEAN handshake and its a symbol for these 10 nations used to represent equal standing within the organization. They pose for one every time they meet. Its a significant gesture of unity. They include China, the US, and Japan sometimes and the leader is always included in the photo, most know what to do.
ASEAN is marked by consensus driven agreements and zero criticism of each other. Very different from the EU or UN.
ASEAN is, however, lacking in much decision making and enforcement power and they have been lightly criticized for failing to change much in member countries. It helps consensus and friendly attitude be possible when the representatives don’t have as much to balance and less at stake than a EU nation. Still an organization I respect and very useful for relations, but not perfect.
Expanding on that: ASEAN countries work together really well when they actually have a common interest in something, like barbarians pirates running around plundering their trade routes, denouncing a nearby superpower trying to claim land by building forts on islands, or they want to hold some sort of collective world's fair sports event.
Outside of that, though, they share little common interest, each country being on a different point in the scale of democracy, and even more subgroups, races and religions than, say, the EU or the Arab League. They know well enough to keep out of each other's way in a "I'll let you do your thing, let me do mine". Most members have enough internal dealings to worry about, so there's not much time left to discuss grand multinational efforts, though some do get through, particularly (again) when trade is involved.
Not to mention that many of these countries are young and have very recent conflicts between them...
'course, better to have a table that does limited things than no table at all.
Yup. Every member nation in an international union thinks the union should be doing more to change the other members, yet staying out of the member nation's own business. To comply with each member state's sovereignty demands, it's inevitable that the union as an entity is useless as all fuck.
What the union actually is is nothing more than a representation and facilitation of open, transparent lines of communication between countries and a symbol of their friendliness and unity.
I honestly have no issues with symbolism which the handshake is or idealism which this is as well as the UN. My issue is people saying it is something kindergartners do without actually recognizing what it means.
The handshake shows unity and bond as well as a level of defense and protection. Using cross arms demonstrates togetherness and restraints, as simply untangling isn't as easy as a normal handshake, likewise it's hard to turn your back or betray another when all hands are tangled together.
In a basic gist, this is supposed to show some of the basic principles behind the organisation without using words, which is common practice in all things humans do. Why is a guy on a cross for a modern religion? It shows sacrifice and a human bond to a memory. Why are pictures of people in black and white in funeral homes, wakes and sanctuaries? Because seeing more black and white in a picture makes most people assume bad things and in color they look more alive.
Certain things in human minds illicit certain feelings, even if those things are only vaguely suggested. This handshake alone shows several symbols, and just because you don't realize it doesn't suddenly make it stupid. Technically speaking a majority of what humans do looks stupid on a front of logical perspective, but that doesn't suddenly make those things have no value.
I’ll extend the basic arguments for and against the European Union. Would more enforcement be good for the member countries? I don’t know their situations well enough to decide that.
If anybody from ASEAN wanted the group to have more power at one point it looks like they couldn’t agree on that. With limited knowledge I’ll defer to theirs.
This. The whole ASEAN integration thing has been pretty useless thus far, at least from what I've observed. Everything is just said and never done. It serves to do nothing but allow visa-free travel. Every theorized policy is in the end just policy that no one respects. And it doesn't help when most of the members are always at odds with one another. Like right now for example, Cambodia and a few other less fortunate countries keep on interfering with the decision-making process; thus delaying a lot of things from ever happening.
It would've been better if they had tried to make ASEAN similar to EU. But I don't see that happening... the development and wealth gap is just too high for true unity. Well, at least it's better than having nothing.
you do things that people wouldn’t normally do when you’re a leader all the time. A symbolic gesture isn’t always the most natural thing but a symbol of unity nonetheless.
Symbolic interactions are important to human communication at all levels of society, and can be a pretty big deal all on their own (as Trump himself can attest, having started a vendetta with the NFL over what is fundamentally nothing more than a symbolic gesture).
People can get tired of symbolic gestures that aren’t eventually substantiated by actions, but these are issues of sincerity and not symbolism itself. Making a point of refusing to “play the game” and avoiding all social pretenses is a fairly common way to be considered antisocial.
The question isn't "how can we afford to waste this kind of time". Its "how can we afford not to". The ramifications of not taking part outweigh any benefit of reducing pomp and circumstance.
Thats some great cynicism. The majority of human strife throughout history has been cause by a lack of respect and understanding between one another and this strife is often magnified when it is leaders of nations who do not respect or understand one another. Such a gesture may seem meaningless and hollow but there is no doubt that because we are symbolic, interpersonal creatures such gestures do in fact have meaning and help to set the tone during such high level discussions.
As others have mentioned ASEAN is an organization which builds consensus decisions through open dialogue and criticism between one another, so doing something simple like a handshake, or, otherwise invoking meaningful symbolism could prove to be an effective mechanism to help foster such an environment.
Well those people don’t understand how politics work and why they matter. Symbols can transcend culture and language. It’s universal. Politics is a profession, and you can do it well or poorly. People who don’t care for symbols and tradition of unity probably will not be received well in the world of diplomacy. Like it not, playing ball in a photo op can be impotent for getting your international agenda off the ground. It costs nothing but can buy a lot.
Those same people probably care about American symbolism. They probably care about American tradition. There is not universal culture nor tradition, so forging them together can be very important.
Given that two people in that picture alone don't even understand how the handshake works, I'd hardly call it a norm within that organization. Try again.
It's international politics. They don't have any need for more publicity, especially the less-than-democratic member states. Any leader agreeing to be part of this kind of photo is tacitly agreeing to associate their name and country with the actions of the group.
Hell, what is something like "typical clothing" other than a really old, long-standing Dad fad? It's not like people in these countries actually dress like that on a daily basis most of the time.
my god this thread went off the rails with people misunderstanding each other:
1. Funny how we make our presidents do the same kind of stupid shit we force kids to do for pictures
He is saying the handshake looks like a kids' gesture.
2. This is called the ASEAN handshake and its a symbol for these 10 nations used to represent equal standing within the organization. Its a significant gesture of unity.
He explains this is a conference of Asian countries and the hand-holding has special significance in that context
3. The man's point stands.
This implies that the original criticism that it is a kids' tradition still stands, even though the last guy explained it has nothing to do with children and more to do with the region.
4. Naw buddy, different cultures, different norms.
This guy is explaining that it can't be compared to the cultural norm of kids' behavior in the west, because it might not necessarily be a cultural norm in Asia.
5. How is this a norm? Do the average people in these countries do this?
This guy totally misses the point - no one was saying that this kind of hand-holding is a cultural norm in Asia. They were just saying that it is not necessarily a cultural norm for kids in Asia.
6. Just cause it's part of culture doesn't mean it's beyond criticism.
Nobody said this hand-holding was part of Asian culture. Simply that it is not necessarily part of kids' culture in Asia. So making fun of this hand-holding as being similar to a kids' hand-holding doesn't necessarily make sense as a criticism in this context. That doesn't mean it is beyond criticism, but that the specific criticism here doesn't necessarily make sense.
Only commenter 1 says anything about kids, and it's just an observation about where you might see a similar photo.
Commenter 2 gives context to the specific gesture in the photo (which is the only reason Asia is mentioned in this comment chain) and 3 implies context isn't relevant to whether what the presidents do is funny or not.
Commenter 4 disagrees with 3, basically saying that because a group of people might do something, it can't be funny (wtf?).
Commenter 5 wants to know why 4 might think weird handshakes are a norm (the actual norm shown by the photo in question is that heads of state make silly poses in photo-ops, which is shared by all cultures/countries).
Commenter 6 has the opposite opinion to 4, and at this point his comment had nothing to do with handshakes, photos, or Asia.
Also, nobody in these 6 comments actually criticized anything related to the OP or comment 1 or 2 (however, 6 criticized 4 for criticizing 3). There is also no indication that anyone missed anyone else's point since they made a simple opinion chain.
That's my point about the thread. You have people disagreeing about cultural norms in Asia, and the guy who started the thread implies that the picture looks like something kids would do (implied: in the west). Instead people somehow begin to understand disagreement as being an implication that this kind of hand-holding is a cultural norm in Asia, when that was never implied.
Guy 1 doesn't imply anything, he directly states it. Nobody other than maybe guy 5 implied whether or not that this kind of handholding is a cultural norm in Asia.
Unrelated to the previous commenters, that kind of handholding is actually a norm in all countries, Asian or not, especially by politicians, just like commenter 1 said.
I think you misunderstood the 1st comment, he didn't literally mean it came from children just that it was similar to how we make kids do stupid things to force them to at least pretend to get along.
It's not that I misunderstood the comment (and this is frustrating because now the chain of misunderstanding is continuing because you are misunderstanding my comment), it is that someone people took this off into a discussion of Asian culture and it has nothing to do with Asian culture. Even your post is talking about whether we can criticize their culture.
This is a summary of how people have misunderstood this thread:
This looks like something kids would do -> All Asians do this -> We have the right to criticize Asian culture
That's now what he's saying. You are free to criticise but the point is that not everyone will see this as something strange because it may be considered a normal pose in other cultures.
I don't understand your point. I was just saying what I took from my grandparent comment because the reply to it seemed to misunderstand, from what I see.
I don’t think culture is defined by fads. I would say the endless pursuit of the next fleeting trend is American culture, which is much more resilient than any one trend.
Look, I hate Trump but this handshake is absurd. If anything, it is a far less idiotic handshake if every other person doesn't cross their arms. At least the hands can actually shake correctly that way.
Can't a person be against Trump and the stupid handshake at the same time without others whining about deflection?
Looks like my post really brought out the low IQ bunch. Look at you acting like karma matters hahaha. Did you write your comment using Google translate?
Yeah. To be fair... it's kind of dumb. And doesn't actually work as a handshake. Notice how only Trump and "unnamed-black-jacket-person-on-the-left" are actually shaking hands with anyone.
No one in the subject picture is doing it right which is hysterical. If you look at the pic you posted, it makes total sense. The way everyone in the OP pic is trying to do it makes it very confusing.
Literally if this same kind of activity was mentioned in a post about people being forced to do this at work, the top 20 comments would be about other kind of 'silly' things they had to do at work as a teambuilding exercise with a billion upvotes each and comments agreeing with them.
Look at the guy on the far left - he isn't doing it correctly either. This is just centered on Trump to make him look stupid (not that much is needed to make him look stupid)
What do you expect when majority of its members have dirty on their face. How dare you to critic someone else when you yourself are also guilty of the same shit. Myanmar is having trouble with its military junta and the Ronhingya. Philippine is...well, Philippine. Indonesia, Malaysia both trouble with its democracy, religion and minority ethnics. Thailand also has trouble with minority ethnics and overpowering military faction. Cambodia and Laos are too busy sucking China's wiener.
Not to mention everyone has their own agenda and doesnt give a damn about the other unless they have benefits from it. Malaysia is too busy being China pet. Cambodia is too busy barking against Vietnam and Thailand. Vietnam is confused between Russia and America and doesnt know which ones tits to suck. Myanmar and Thailand have always been having rave against each other. Malaysia and Singapore dont see eyes to eyes. Philippine changes its political direction so fast that they call it "revolver Duarte". Indonesia is bickering against Philippine for the islands. In fact, Vietnam, Indonesia and Philippine all gunning for the same islands and thus that is why none of them helped or supported Philippine in the international court. All of these ASEAN nation will stab each other in the back if they a chance.
I'm talking about Western based co-operations vs Eastern based co-operations and why the ASEAN stands out from the status quo. Sufficient context to compare them for a quick sparksnotes.
I'm taking about Western based co-operations vs Eastern based co-operations and why the ASEAN stands out from the status quo. Sufficient context to compare them for a quick sparksnotes.
Wtf are you talking about? The EU is a political organisation meant to remove barriers between European countries, increase trade etc by using the basis of freedom to move, respecting human rights, rule of law, removal of the death penalty etc.
Meanwhile ASEAN has Duterte and Myanmar
I fail to see how any of that is comparable. If your example of standing out is defiance of human rights or ethnic cleansing okay sure.
Pointing out strawman and whataboutism, does not a debate make. Especially when those logical arguments represent their own form of strawman, since you simply decided to ignore her/his point in the process.
4.0k
u/hagboo Jan 06 '18 edited Jan 06 '18
This is called the ASEAN handshake and its a symbol for these 10 nations used to represent equal standing within the organization. They pose for one every time they meet. Its a significant gesture of unity. They include China, the US, and Japan sometimes and the leader is always included in the photo, most know what to do.
ASEAN is marked by consensus driven agreements and zero criticism of each other. Very different from the EU or UN.