Why do Japanese bow as a greeting?

   Hi, it is Sho.

Today, I will tell you an interesting Japanese custom.

Have you ever seen 2 Japanese bowing to each other?

 

 

They are greeting each other by bowing not shaking their hands.




As you always do so, American shake hands when they first meet with someone.
But, we rarely do such a thing. It looks weird for Japanese.




Here is more interesting thing. Japanese often bow to the person who are talking with them
 on the phones in spite of that he/she doesn't see them bowing.



This might be why Japanese are said to be too polite by other countries.



By the way, the majority of japanese house have doors which open to the outside.



It's perfectly opposite from Western countries, such as UK, US, Canada, and so on.




This difference is related to the difference of greeting.



Japanese are standing in front of a door, but not too close to a door because



we have to make a small space so that the door can be open and also we can bow
to the host of the house.

Japanese could misunderstand if you hug them suddenly.

 

In general, we Japanese don't hug as long as we are just friends. There are some
cases we hug each other as friends, though. It's not happening so frequently like American.



In my view, there are more unsocial people in Japan than in the US.



So, if you hug your Japanese friend, you need to be careful to not be misunderstood.