bowing

One of the things I really love about Japan is the politeness, best illustrated by the custom of bowing. When I am outside playing with our son, and one of our neighbors comes driving home, they always slow down and make a bow in the car. When someone makes an errand to the house, they always bow at the front door. When we are out on our evening walk and meet other fellow walkers, me always exchange a little bow when passing each other.

I love bowing. It feels second nature to me, as if this is the society I was supposed to grow up in. I find myself thinking a lot about my grandfather who when I was a child always imprinted in me the importance of being polite and was half jokingly teaching me that it was very crucial to bow when greeting other people. He told me that he was of that generation for whom it still was customary to greet one another by bowing.

Myself, I have made it my mission to teach our baby to behave courteous to others, and since we live in Japan bowing is of course an integral part of that. When our baby was one year old, he got a little children’s book that is all about bowing from the “books and toys and education and parenting monthly mailing club” we enrolled in when he was born. Cute figures are meeting each other on the pages and there are cutouts that can be folded so that the figures change from a standing to a bowing position; our son has come to love that book (maybe because I have come to love reading it to him).

We made a little family excursion to a small mountain the other weekend. On the top there was a parking area with tourist information and maps and of course a toilet. There were very few cars when we arrived and we parked and let our son stretch his legs, running around on the almost empty car park. Coming towards the toilet is a lady walking quickly, breaking into a little jog. Our baby sees the lady and runs towards her, stopping to bow when she gets close. The lady also stops abruptly, bowing to our son, before continuing har run towards the toilets.

It was such a little gem of a scene and I only wish I had been filming our son when it happened so that we could have enjoyed this cutest of moments over and over again. Now I am enjoying it in my mind instead, as well as the everyday habit our son has made himself of bowing to every one he meets outside. Today we were out walking and there was a woman coming out from a house, leading her bike. My little baby stopped playing with the pebbles on the ground, stood up and bowed at her as soon as he became aware of her.

My wife wonders why; maybe that is my fault or maybe I should say merit (and I am not talking about reading his little book). Sometimes my loves-to-imitate-son sees me indulging myself to a little bow at home when my wife says something that in a non-family situation would be bow-worthy (always to be met by a pretending-to-be-angry-but-cannot-hide-her-laughter-wife); I guess that could be an explanation. But wherever the reason, every time our son bows and smiles happily with all his face it gives me such a great pleasure to see what simply must be the cutest little boy in the whole big world.