Bowing your way
The Japanese greet each other by bowing. It’s a very interesting social action that can be categorized by the way you bow and how low you bow. It can range from a small nod of the head (it means you’re not very important) to a low 90degree bow (it means you’re very important). The way you bow also shows the social status of you and the person you’re bowing to.
If the person in front of you is older and/or have a higher status than you, you’re suppose to bow deeply and longer than s/he does. But the Japanese do not keep this rule to foreigners so usually they just do a bried nod of the head. That’s just to show how important foreigners are :P Just kidding!
The japanese do not usually shake hands althought sometimes they do greet foreigners with a hand shake. Well, ponder over this for a moment, ladies and gents, it’s a very peculiar thing. Most Japanese people (except old people) know the the customs of foreigners but most foreigners don’t know the customs of their asian counterparts unless they’ve studied the subject or have been with a Japanese person (a friend/gf/bf). This is a perfect example of westernization. I wonder if there will ever be an asianization :P
Anyway back to bowing, i found a very cutesy video of a bunch of japanese kids bowing. It’s an ad for Kleenex tissues. You’ll see the bow at the end :)
Source: Japan guide
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