three finger salute

 The youth of Thailand were the first to adopt the three finger salute which featured in The Hunger Games, seen by this generation of protestors as a story for them, a story about young people defying an authoritarian and corrupt elite.  In The Hunger Games the salute is a gesture of respect and friendship but as used, for example, in Thailand it is a sign of rebellion. 

 The salute was also evident in demonstrations in Hong Kong ,although the fact that almost everyone was carrying umbrellas made it perhaps less noticeable. Certainly Australians have only just become aware of the gesture as the defiant crowds gather in Myanmar and signal their opposition to the generals.

 The three fingers are the middle three held together while the thumb and little finger stay out of sight. Just as it is possible to make a mistake with the two-finger salute (facing out is Victory!, facing in is Up you!) so it is possible to confuse this three-finger salute with the Serbian three finger salute in which the thumb and adjacent two fingers are held up.  For the Serbians this is a nationalistic signal of love of country. Personally I find the rebellion salute hard to do, while the Serbian one is very easy (which is to say nothing about their relative political merits).