Special price

“Hello lady! Good price! Special price!” These calls echo around me as I stroll down the street, any street, anywhere in China. “Hello watch!” “Hello T-shirt”, are also common; it’s enough to give you an identity crisis.

The informal free market is alive and kicking in China. And Caucasian inflation is rampant. Goods are rarely priced and haggling is expected. The Chinese have a saying, ‘foreigners are easy to fool’, and they try their best to do so. The cheeky vendors initially quote exorbitantly high prices. The most ridiculous quote I received was 180 yuan (£14) for a postcard. Needless to say I laughed in her face and walked away. As Mr T might say, I pity the fool. You can expect prices in shops and the market to be inflated by at least 100 percent. But the sellers know they are pushing their luck and usually come down to a more agreeable price; £1 rather than £15 for a mug, for instance.

Bartering can be an amusing process. I am rubbish at it, but Tom has skills. Given that neither seller nor buyer speak the same language it becomes a battle over who can spout more rubbish. Tom gives them the low-down on Grangehill or discusses the Credit Crunch in exchange for whispers from the sellers of, ‘Okay, normally I give people this price but for you I give you this [shows calculator] but sshhhh [finger on lips] it is our secret.’

When you enter a shop you are routinely followed. This especially happens in book shops, pharmacies and clothes shops. The sales assistant silently glides behind you peering over your shoulder. I have no idea why. They don‘t offer any help and seem affronted when you ask a question as if their cover has been blown. It must therefore be the Chinese version of in-store CCTV. It can be quite fun giving the assistants the run around: taking the most convoluted route between the shop shelves, doubling back, going down dead ends and stopping to ponder the more embarrassing products such as laxative tea and pants. But whatever you do you can’t shake them off.

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Britons! Take a bow...

We have been in Japan for almost a month now. The food is no longer an adventure into the unknown, we can speak a few words of the lingo, we can even navigate our way through the spaghetti-soup map of Tokyo’s metro system.

But there is one thing that I still haven’t got used to: bowing.

It didn’t take long to make this serendipitous discovery. In Japan, they do it everywhere: in shops; in the street; on public transport, people get on down and bow.

Sometimes you feel as if you’re in a Monty Python sketch. Enter a shop, a hotel or a restaurant and you risk being attacked by profuse bowing that’ll leave you blushing and bewildered. Have I inadvertently been mistaken for a Knight of the Realm? Has Queen Victoria suddenly popped up behind me?

Japan must be a chiropractor’s dream, for bowing is the norm and indeed it forms an essential feature of one's social interaction people with others, be it friends, colleagues or complete strangers.

Children are taught at home how to show respect and bow, job seekers are shown the exact angle their bow should take, and workers are expected to bow as part of their daily work

In the land of the ‘salaryman’ white-collar worker, bowing helps show respect to colleagues and acknowledges the rigid hierarchy which structures the company.

Like many other aspects of Japanese society there are strong norms that define how one behaves towards friends and colleagues and different degrees of bowing to follow according to one’s place in this hierarchy.

The more important the person, the deeper the bow, and more outwardly fawning you must be. A kind of replacement for the days of the shogun when one prostrated oneself before the ruler.

Hence you witness a frenetic outbreak of bowing amongst work colleagues, at train stations and other public places, when they go their separate ways at the end of the working day.

In the company of those higher up the work hierarchy poor salaryman doesn’t dare turn his back and show disrespect to his seniors, rather he must shuffle backwards, through the crowds, bowing and scraping as he goes.

This isn’t just restricted to salaryman. It is rife across all workplaces. I have seen train drivers bowing away, performing a strict ritual before changing shifts.

Bowing is not restricted to the workplace but is commonplace throughout peoples social lives as well. You often seen friends leaving each other at the end of the night with a bow, as we might a hug or a handshake.

I’ve even seen two friends bowing to each other after a baseball game, on one the station platform, the other inside the train.

Surely all this back-bothering can’t be good for the old lumbago.

As a gaijin you don’t escape this curious social proceedure. Every time I enter a shop or ask a stranger for directions I get a bow. And actually purchasing something can spark a frenzy of spine-stretching, accompanied by an effusive flurry of thank yous and please come agains.

In a hundred yen shop in Nara today the young cashier bowed so deeply and so vigorously to me I was worried he’d knock himself out on the counter.

My surreal encounters with this odd social ritual haven't been limited to shops either. I've been bowed at by ticket inspectors on the train (one of them even doffing his cap as well), by the little lightsabre men who control the traffic at roadworks, by post office clerks and waitresses, theatre ushers and even a policeman.

Blimey, a policeman! Imagine such a thing in Blighty - that would knock the stuffing out of even the most hardened criminal.

Shortly after arriving and getting my first bow, I began to learn to steel myself before attempting to speak to a local, suppressing the urge to giggle and returning them the level of respect they accorded me.

After a week, the bowing, like so many of the other bizarre things I have encountered in Japan started to become normal, then even tiresome.

By the third week I had started to find this excessive politeness unnerving. When even hotel cleaners bowed to me (surely it should have been the other way round, considering they were about to muck out my stables) I felt uncomfortable, as if I was some colonialist oppressor, baying at my coolies for shaking my sedan chair.

But perhaps all this bowing has a purpose other than acting as some quaint, albeit rather odd, courtly hangover from days long gone.

Maybe bowing plays a key role in helping to maintain social harmony in what is a densely populated nation, the well-ordered and disciplined society we witnessed where good, upstanding citizens abide the law and respect each other.

In this way it could even make a vital contribution to Japan’s economic prowess, instilling in its citizens the values of good, honest hard work, self-discipline and respect for authority.

Without wishing to go all Daily Mail how has Japan held on to many social values which Britain appears to have lost? Perhaps bowing is their secret.

So why not give it a go back home? After all, ASBOs have failed, and if we can try them we can try anything.

Of course, any politician would be laughed out the House if they tried to introduce this. No, this has to be more organic, to come from the people themselves. This demands popular action!

So go on, give it a go. Next time you’re at work, down the pub or at the football, face your boss, your friend or your colleague, bend down and give them a good 90 degrees. Trust me; it'll catch on in no time...
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