Bowing to tradition

As I have mentioned previously, I have an on-going e-mail debate in progress with an old high school chum who I have called "Kyle" (not his real name). I could discuss a variety of specific issues we have discussed in the last few months, but I thought I'd focus on our most recent exchange, which deals with--of all things--bowing.

Again, Kyle is on the "far right" with respect to virtually any political or social issue. Therefore, his sights are firmly set on our current CEO. (His name is Barack Obama; perhaps you've heard of him.) Well, Obama was recently in Japan, and while there (hold your breath and then expel it in utter shock) he actually BOWED to Japanese royalty. Well, for Kyle, this is tantamount to treason--bowing to a foreign monarch, he argues, has not been done by U.S. Presidents going all the way back to George Washington. And Kyle sent me a web article that called the President's bow both a sign of "idiocy" and "weakness." From the perspective of the far right, the President bows to no one--certainly not a foreign monarch. The Revolutionary War, he noted, was fought to put an end to worshiping monarchs.

As usual, I was a bit shocked at such a notion. Since bowing is a deeply-ingrained part of Japanese social interaction, I considered a bow to be culturally appropriate and as well as a welcome (and fairly innocuous) gesture of politeness. Well, after a little further research (some of it Kyle's postings sent to my in-box) it turned out that Kyle was correct--to an extent. Having never studied bowing closely, I discovered that bowing is not necessarily a traditional part of U.S. Presidential protocol in Japan. But, in the '90s, Bill Clinton did bow somewhat when he visited Japan, and I also found that President Eisenhower once bowed to a foreign head of state. Still, I was flabbergasted that such a gesture would be regarded as either weak or idiotic--from what I know about Japan, bowing deeply could never be disrespectful; far from it.

Kyle provided me with several American conservative yahoos--including one who claims to be a "Japan expert"--to support the idea that the bow was a faux pas. However, I became more interested in the receivers--i.e., what did the JAPANESE think about this gesture? Finding an answer was a little hard to come by--most of the Internet buzz is from those yahoos. But I did find a site that had the following rather telling information, from a web page called examiner.com:

"While the Japanese media has largely avoided commenting on the [bowing] incident, numerous comments have been made on Japanese blogs and open forums. The general comments have been rather different in tone from that of American counterparts. Here are some select comments made on several sites:

[All comments translated from Japanese]

• “What a bow!”
• “Such a deep bow from Obama, what a fine guy.”
• “I’m surprised he bowed. He’s really trying hard to meet the Japanese way!”
• “President Obama is a top-class person, isn’t he? Amazing!”
• “The Emperor is giving a nice smile!”
• “Is the Japanese Emperor really that special?”
• “The Emperor or the Pope, the President or the Prime Minister, whoever is greater is not something that I think can be decided objectively.”
• “I laughed because it was a much better bow than I had imagined.”
• “Obama’s huge!”
• “Obama has more of a true Japanese heart than most Japanese do.”

Not all of these comments are enthusiastically positive, but none is really negative either--and most are quite favorable. At that, I said "whew"--bowing really is OK. I told Kyle that if Obama's gesture marked a change in Presidential behavior, I'm all for it. I have argued that the U.S. has often been arrogant internationally, and Kyle has wanted examples. Well, here's this week's case in point. When in Tokyo, do as the Tokyoans do. And dammit, show a little humility and respect.