Take a Bow

You begin to recognize you are a foreigner at moments when you seem completely out of tune with what is happening around you. When the most common everyday activities become remarkably novel experiences.

Take for example the practice of bowing in South Korea which is used as a sign of courtesy toward another. This week I found that I could not overlook my fascination with bowing as it is the most predominantly used gesture. Koreans will bow when they enter or leave a room (provided people are in it or a statue of Buddha), when they introduce themselves, when they say hello in the street, or even when they want to sell you something. There are two varieties that I've observed: the full torso bow and the less formal head bow.

Moreover, there is, like everything else in Korea, a hierarchal structure to the bowing ritual. Apparently the lower you bow to another person the more respect you are showing. This causes tensions for some Koreans in a way that you would not expect. Contrary to North American hierarchal structure where receiving respect is the sought after ideal, in Korea those who bow the lowest are viewed as the most virtuous so many Koreans will try to out-bow the other.

It would be wrong of me to say that everyone is as enthusiastic about bowing as I am. Just like any tradition there is a range in the level of participation. I can personally note a number of times where I bowed to a stranger only to receive a penetrating stare. As a foreigner you never know for sure if you are being stared at because the other person is just curious about you or if you are doing something that insults them. Rather than having these incidence reflect poorly on my bowing technique, I excuse an unresponsive local as having anti-social tendencies.

Despite a few minor setbacks, I still hold the opinion that bowing is an intriguing phenomenon - specifically what it says about the role of ethics in a Collectivist culture. The Western assumption is that lowering oneself for an Other is to diminished the self as individual. From this perspective ethics is reduced to a choice that begins and ends with the individual rather than the condition of our relationship to the Other. When one bows (i.e. putting the Other above the self) there is both a giving and receiving. It is an exchange that can only happen between two. One bows with the Other.

(This post is enormously indebted to the work of Emmanuel Levinas. If you would like to read more of my writing on him check out my other blog posts here)