I can't quite get into the bowing thing here. The Japanese people bow all the time. I was walking down the hall of my hotel yesterday to get something out of my room during a break and the housekeeping crew was vacuuming the floor of the hall. As I walked by one man turned off his vacuum cleaner and bowed to me. I sort of smiled and gave him a nod back. When I met a couple of the guys in the LiMo foundation council that I'm on who are from Japan I instinctively shoved my hand out to shake their hands. They returned the handshake but it was clearly the handshake of someone who doesn't do a lot of handshaking. There was no grip whatsoever. It was like a dead fish in my hand! In my defense I didn't see any of my other colleagues here, most of whom are British, bow to them either. It just didn't occur to me at the time.
So it's sort of like, on one hand, when in Rome. But on the other hand, who am I kidding? Am I really going to try to pull off looking like I "fit in" here? To show you what I mean I'm posting a video of me during my first couple of days here trying to "fit in".
So anyway I guess I will start bowing but I plan on looking pretty stupid. I think I need to do some stretching this morning first.
Monday, May 19, 2008
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3 comments:
I once helped some guys find a subway station in London . . . when I showed it to them, they bowed . . . and for the life of me, and I can't figure out why . . . I bowed back. Just one of those half bends . . . but lord I'm just a natural bowin' fool . . .
Patrick, that is funny. I could see myself doing the same thing. Somehow wherever I visit, I start picking up the local twang pretty quick. As soon as it slides out, I laugh and think why in the world did I just say it like that. I'm sure they are thinking the same thing. Ha!
Or in England where you start talking like they do and they don't all talk like David Niven or Simon from Idol . . . some of them sound like the guys from Mary Poppins . . . .
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