A formal bow isn't only the bow itself, but also the depth/angle of the bow. If you're high ranking meeting a low ranking person you expect the low ranking to bow deeper than your self, but..
1. Is there a difference regarding the distance in rank? If a director is greeted by the vice director they are closer in rank than if a blue collar worker meets the director. Will the vice director and the blue collar have an equal bow or will the blue collar bow deeper?
2. You meet someone of equal rank, what then?
In addition
3a. A man meets a woman?
3b. A man meets a woman of higher rank?
4. Retired (In my case I was head of the IT department. Not many months before I got disability pension(I'm 57 now)), what is their rank? Is it according to last job?
5. Age means a difference in rank, but how does that affect 1,2, 3 and 4? How much older do you have to be than the (young) director before he does a deeper bow than you, the idiot of a foreigner, finally understand that it's time to bow, would probably be a loss of face for the high ranked? And what if you start bowing the second you stop, is that correct?
Last time I was in Japan was in 1977 as a young sailor, and we didn't bow to anyone we met (mostly mamma_san's and her girls hehe) or employees at McDonalds (one got hysterical when I left a tip hehe), so my experience in such things is not at a very high level so to speak. I once met a party of Japanese high ranking officials in Bergen (the second largest city in Norway, not the county in NJ), but all communication was through the interpreter, which of course bowed deep to this young Norwegian, and the formality with the Japanese was just a short nod (the head of the party actually gave me his card and asked me to get in contact with me if I ever got to Japan, I'm guessing he prayed to higher powers that I never came to Japan, after he got sober hehe) . What the interpreter asked for made me jump high in the chair and wonder if these guys had the slightest idea of western culture. For them I guess any girl they met in a bar, especialy those not together with a man, was a hooker, so they had some problems getting theses girls to understand what they were interested in. I mean, you should at least have a dance before you invite her to the closest hotel. hehe
If I ever need this information I don't know, but I really want to take a trip to Japan again before I die.
