Bowing

I will never learn how to bow. Say what you want to. Call me a cultural imperialist. Call me an "ugly American." After almost a decade living in Japan I have not learned how to bow and I have no intention to do so in the future either. In Japan bowing is not simply a matter of lowering your head and looking serious. There are many different kinds of bows that are "appropriate" for different kinds of people. Your long time colleague would not expect you to bow deeply to him. However, if you should chance to run into Emperor Akihito, nothing but a highly stylized ,prolonged deep bow would be appropriate. To me bowing is part of the tip of that huge and cold iceberg that some call "the system" . I don't like bowing and I don't like being bowed to. When you enter a department store here right after it opens, all the clerks will bow to you as you pass by. At my condo, they have a uniformed man who bows to people who leave the building between 7:30 am and 8:30 am. For a whole hour the man does nothing but bow to people and say "Good morning." When I am being bowed to I feel ill at ease and I never know quite how to respond. In a crowded train station bowing can be one real nuisance. When you have a group of 10 people bowing to each other repeatedly in front of the stairs that lead to the platform where your train is going to depart from in 10 seconds........ Bowing can at times be downright dangerous. A threat to public safety. At least 24 Tokyoites have fractured their skulls while bowing.......