Obama's Japan bow showed respect: State Department

[sabra]

Source: AFP

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's deep bow to the Japanese emperor last week was a simple show of respect, the State Department said Tuesday in response to US critics who decried the move.

"Protocol, in general, is about respecting the customs and traditions of a host country. The president was simply showing respect," the State Department said in a statement.

Images broadcast of Obama, visiting Tokyo last week at the start of his first presidential tour of Asia, bowing deeply as he shook hands with Emperor Akihito, raised ire among Obama's conservative US foes who accused him of kowtowing to the son of Japan's wartime Emperor Hirohito.

However, experts in Japanese etiquette have praised it as an appropriate show of respect.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gsANWHyhe2xywavh22cgR6v22a6w

[liberal N proud]

1. When in Rome

[TwilightGardener]

2. So stupid that they feel they have to defend a simple respectful greeting.

Fuck anyone who lives to pick apart something so benign.

[tomm2thumbs]

3. I think he did a full on bow to drive the freepers crazy

last time, they were all over it, like 'it was half a bow, or he started to bow' - this time, he did a full-court press bow and it blew their heads off!

bwahahahahaha -

I hope next he lifts up the French president and gives him a big 'ol wet kiss on the lips and waves at the freepers with a FU smile.

[Steerpike]

4. At least he didn't kiss him on the lips

Like Bush did to that Saudi dude! Hey, was that real or a photoshop?

[No Elephants]

10. Real.

It's nothing for Arab men to kiss another man briefly on the lips. If approached by an Arab man who is about to kiss you, your only choices are to turn your face away, to be still (and get kissed on the lips by the Arab), to participate in the kiss.

[Deja Q]

5. It is showing respect. Don't freepers understand this concept? Can they understand the concept?

[Cha]

6. Freepers weren't the only ones..

There was a thread on this board that was calling it "Bow Gate 2".

[itsrobert]

7. Of course it showed respect

And showed Obama was bigger than the Emperor who did not return the bow in-kind because the "Emperor does not bow" excuse.

[Hepburn]

8. I have a DIL who is native Japanese and I have a ton of friends from...

...Korea, China, and East India.

I bow to them in my greeting when I see them. That is a cultural thing that I do to show respect to them and to honor them. I am NOT kow-towing to them ~~ it is simply respect for the culture from which they come. I love it that in return the men usually try and shake hands with me ~~ and I am a female ~~ in that many consider this a sign of respect to me.

Fuck this shit from the RWs and the rest of the assholes. People showing respect to others is a GOOD thing and not something evil.

Sheesh.......

[No Elephants]

12. Don't they bow to you as well?

I had a very awkward moment years ago when I was introduced (in America) to the head of a huge Japanese firm that had become a mulinational, I stuck my hand out to shake hands at the same moment as he made a deep bow. My thumb almost went straight up his nose.

That aside, my point is, he bowed deeply immediately, even though, in his firm, his rank was much higher than mine was in my firm and his firm was much bigger than mine.

[ElboRuum]

9. I can't believe this is an "issue".

"Protocol, in general, is about respecting the customs and traditions of a host country. The president was simply showing respect."

Only in America can you piss people off by doing your job right.

[No Elephants]

11. Obama's bowing did not bother me. What bothered me was that the Emperor failed to bow to Obama.

They are equals and both should show equal respect to the other. It's fine for Obama to defer to the Emperor's customs, especially when in the Emperor's country. But why was the Emperor not observing his own country's customs? If they had both bowed to each other simultaneously, you would have had a show of mutual respect. It would not have appeared that Obama was acting subservient to the Emperor.