President Obama is currently in Japan and met with Emperor Akihito and his wife. The president bowed to them, which is expected, but has also caused some controversy here. The more culturally illiterate Americans have taken offense to this, saying that, first, A president shouldn’t bow to another leader, and second, that the emperor didn’t return the bow, thus mocking America even more.

Here’s the video:

I had my native Japanese girlfriend look at the video, here were her thoughts:

1. The emperor and his wife both returned the bows. It is very subtle, but the slight dropping of the head can be seen, and it is typical, especially for persons in high positions.

2. Obama was correct to bow, but over did it. Americans aren’t accustom to bowing, especially when it comes to Japanese culture, because there are so many variations and subtleties to it. A simple head dip like the emperor did would have been sufficient, but it was probably  being better to bow too much rather than not enough.

Late Update:

The Japanese news (as well as blogs) has picked up on  how some Americans are worked up about the whole issue. Ant the consensus seems to be “what the hell are the Americans so worked up about?” from their perspective, bowing is the same as a handshake (and is often used in place of it) can you imagine how Americans would react if the Emperor came to the US and refused to shake the president’s hand? In their eyes it’s the same thing.

Another interesting comment was that Obama bowed that much because he is so tall, that he had to in order to lower his head to the level of the Emperor (which is proper) whereas, with the Emperor being shorter, it wasn’t necessary to bow deeply.