I’m a huge fan of a certain Japanese singer, and one of my dreams is to someday travel to Japan to see her perform live, and since this is pure fantasy, meet her face-to-face so that I can express my sincere and heartfelt appreciation of her musical talent.
So the question popped into my head the other day: what are the rules governing whether I bow, how deeply, and for how long?
I understand that non-Japanese are not really expected to know this stuff and so I would be cut some slack and probably wouldn’t be expected to bow at all, so for the sake of argument let’s assume that I am actually a native Japanese person and am thus compelled by social custom to bow.
I guess what my question boils down to this: Which of us — the celebrity or me — is the “social superior” in this case? She is the famous person and I am the fan which from my Western perspective makes her socially superior. On the other hand, I’m several years older than her and, if I understand Japanese protocol correctly, that makes me superior. And of course, as a fan I’m technically the customer buying from her shop, which again makes me the superior, as I understand it.
The reason behind my question is that I wouldn’t want to embarrass her by showing more deference than is called for. Also, I’ve heard (here, I think) that the Japanese version of “cussing somebody out” is not to curse, but to become overly polite, and thus it seems that bowing too deeply could be seen as an insult.
Depends. If you’re handing her flowers or something, you’d probably go maybe 20 degrees down, holding it until she took the flowers, then look her in the face and smile. While as if you wanted to go for a total, “We’re not worthy! We’re not worthy!”-Austin Powers moment, then you’d want to shoot for a full 90 degree bow and stay there for as long as she seemed to need.
But in general I doubt that a rock concert is all that formal an event–you’re probably fine to run up and do whatever so long as you’re not jumping all over her–and nearly all Japanese bands record their CDs in America so they’re probably pretty used to American formalities (or the lack thereof).
Mostly it depends on what sort of interaction she seems like she would demand. She might be a total prima donna, or she might be totally laid back and cool with anything.
So the only real answer is to go and judge what seems right based on what everyone else is doing, and the basic body language she gives off.
Not that I’m aware of. Or at least I would only see this happening in sales meetings or politics–just the same as in the US. I’ve heard plenty of people get chewed out in Japan, called worthless, etc. In fact, I’ve seen it there more than here.
Heh. Cool I’d probably give her a T-shirt with a picture of a dog on it. She’s well-known for loving dogs, and her typical stage clothing usually seems to be a brightly-colored T-shirt and jeans. (In one of her music videos I noticed she’s wearing a Washington Huskies T-shirt.)
I’m thinking more of a (hypothetical) situation where I might meet her outside of a performance setting, like bumping into her in public or even a prearranged meeting.
From what I’ve seen in various “candid” videos, i.e. when she’s at home or otherwise offstage, she comes across as kind of a dork
I’d probably give her a T-shirt with a picture of a dog on it. She’s well-known for loving dogs, and her typical stage clothing usually seems to be a brightly-colored T-shirt and jeans. (In one of her music videos I noticed she’s wearing a Washington Huskies T-shirt.)
