by Jeremy Quinton
Home >> People Who Wave
The different areas of the city – different continents! – are connected by ferries. You can probably imagine the beauty of the scene at night, with the ferry lights reflected together with the stars in the water on clear nights…even if you’ve never actually been to Istanbul…yet.
There recently I noticed (or remembered!) how some people seem to have this natural, spontaneous tendency to wave at the people on passing boats. It seemed that the majority of the ‘wavers’ were children. And although I didn’t give it any more thought then, I’ve even more recently had a similar experience back home.
On my way into work they’re doing major improvements. The road is lined with workmen who stop the normal traffic to allow the works lorries in and out. These works started about 5 months ago and I’m told they’ll continue for another 18 so…I’ve already got to recognise the faces of the road workers rather well!
They’re the faces of men who have to stand outside all day every working day in all weathers. So by February, most of them are looking like hardy mountain climbers!
Perhaps not surprisingly, they don’t appear to express a high level of job satisfaction. They don’t smile much, for example (sure, why should they?). Their tasks could be described as easy in many senses, though the conditions are basic and the rewards probably minimal. On the other hand, what they’re doing allows the safe flow of people from one place to another in their daily lives – a pretty important job, right? But there’s this one guy, one amazing guy, who simply stands out.
Every day for the last 5 months he’s waved at me and other motorists as we pass by. And he’ll often flash a beaming white smile too. And nod his head. And every time I see this I wonder how he does it. I mean…what is it that makes him wave? It’s so easy not to, right?
I’ve got the idea from I-don’t-know-where that he’s from Morocco, is over here without his family and has learned something big in life that he transmits to anyone who sees his wave. I know, I know, my imagination has kicked in there, but who knows?
What I do know is that his simple wave is a special part of the day for me.
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Posted on http://www.weeklyletter.com at 2008-01-24 09:00:00 +0100
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My family has the tradition of waving and waving until the car or other means of transportation is out of sight.
And I must admit I am tempted to wave randomly at times…
I like to imitate the refined way the royals wave at their subjects from their balconies, their limousines, their pumpkins-turned-carriages. It’s the slightest quiver: arm arm, wrist wrist… and the institutional smile.
Ha, ha, ha, Gina! If tennis players develop tennis elbows, then, what do kings and queens get? Royal wrists?
Wes, my grandma and aunt Mila from Bilbao used to do exactly the same. When we left their house in Begoña (a very tall building – they live on the nineteenth floor), they used to wave and wave until we disappeared into the tunnel. They don’t do it now, and I can tell you that leaving Bilbao is not the same any more…
What makes people wave? Football does. In the stadiums, people make waves. They do the WAVE. The whole grandstand becomes a wave.
As a child, I remember spending summer holidays at my aunt’s farm just outside a little village called Gurteen near where I grew up. In Gurteen, everybody waved (or winked or nodded) at everybody. Mostly because they all knew each other, but even a stranger in town or someone passing through would get waved at. When I moved to the big, bad city it took me a while to get used to the idea that nobody acknowledged the existence of anybody else! “Don’t stop to wave in the city, Joe!”, they told me. Now I live in a smaller town and there’s a litte more waving going on, but not like it used to be in Gurteen.
Gina, do you think the ‘Royal Wave’ is something the royals are trained in? I can imagine the tutor, “No, no, no, Charles not like that, like this!”
Oscar, I believe the football wave is known by many as The Mexican Wave because it gained worldwide notice during the 1986 FIFA World Cup in Mexico.
Olé, olé, olé, olé …
In Germany, the Mexican Wave is known as LA OLA.
In a big city like London, you only wave to people who you know. Even then it’s just really an acknowledgement that they are there, accompanied by “all right! Morning! etc”
However,sometimes even people you know,don’t acknowledge you or sometimes they do (when they feel like it!) and other times they don’t.
This is a little game which I call one-upmanship where someone tries to prove they are cleverer than you. I used to get very annoyed about it,but now I just don’t waste my time on it anymore. If someone greets me, then I’ll answer, but if they don’t then I don’t care about it.
This is a common little game that’s played around the world. It’s even followed me here to Spain.
As for the royal wave, I think it’s more a gesture to tell the peasants to distance themselves from them.
Hi everyone.
It is true that at the end of the day I wave many persons that I just only Know them by sight.I reckon is better to wave them rather than avoid watching at them when I pass by, so it would be rude.Every single day each one talk with a different person so we have to be well manered with others.We share such a lot of time having coffe in the same pub,doing shopping,waiting in the hairdresser with persons that we haven´t spoken with so that in case we don´t wave each others would be boring.
Greetings