IN a new twist to America's growing thirst for political correctness, Asia's citizens are being defended against an unlikely enemy - the deaf.
Sign language, which was accused of sterotyping Asian characteristics in its series of symbols, has been changing to reflect changing attitudes, experts have revealed.
The signs covering most Asian countries have in the past been formed by twisting the index finger next to an eye to indicate a slant while the hand forms a letter to indicate the country: C for Chinese, J for Japanese, K for Korean and T for Thai.
Frederic Jondreau, director of the American Sign Language Institute,said the new sign for China or Chinese is to draw an inverted L-shape from the heart to the navel - the way Chairman Mao Zedong's favoured jackets are buttoned.
The sign can be embellished by putting the fingers together as if they were unfastening a zip.
Korea is now represented by a flat hand at the top of the head making what looks like a rice farmer's cap, not something a Seoul businessman might recognise.
America's deaf now sign Japan by pulling the hands away from each other vertically to form the extended silhouette of the country in the air.
Blacks used to be represented by putting the finger to the nose to indicate a flat proboscis.
Now, not only have they acquired a new politically correct name - African Americans - they also have a new deaf sign; an open hand revolving in the air in the shape of Africa.
The homosexual community, which used to be signalled by the deaf with the classic limp wrist symbol, now mostly finds itself spelt out as G-A-Y.
Mr Jondreau said he had not noticed Asian objections to the former stereotypes.
That might not be so hard to fathom. Mr Jondreau's girlfriend, a Japanese who knows sign language, had never associated the Japanese sign with the idea of having slanted eyes.
And Japan's own sign language symbol meaning ''foreigner'' incorporates fingers making a circle round an eye, to represent round eyes.
Because most countries have their own sign languages, the US, which is more sensitive to the stereotyping problem than most, generally tries to solve the problem by adopting the sign that other countries use to identify themselves.
