The Proprieties and Respect Altogether
(Les propriétés et le respect total)
1. The Most Respectful Manner in Japan
The Grand Shrine of Ise has been the most highly ranked shrine in Japan, since the Goddess of the Sun called "Ama-Terasu-Ou-Mi-Kami" (heaven-illuminating-great-gracious-god) is enshrined there with other highly-regarded gods, for the Goddess is regarded as the direct ancestor of the Imperial Family.
In the shrine, the most respectful manner of greeting to the gods is said to be as follows, though it might be rare to observe it nowadays.
1) Clap your hands four times before your face.
2) Pause just a moment with folded palms.
3) Again, clap your hands four times before your face.
( http://www.chikumashobo.co.jp/product/9784480089427/ )
It is extraordinary, since you are usually expected in a Shinto shrine to perform "bowing two times, clapping your hands two times before your face, and a final bowing all devoutly" to the main inner shrine in the main precincts.
But, exceptionally, in a few prestigious Shinto shrines as authentic as the Grand Shrine of Ise, you are expected to perform clapping of the hand four times in a row.
( http://blog.satonaoaki.main.jp/?eid=313184 )
Indeed, Japanese language is based on quadruple time rhythm. If you foreigners want to speak correct Japanese, you have to master this rhythm.
Otherwise, you cannot fully exercise the most respectful manner of greeting in Japan where in ancient times before introduction of Buddhism people greeted each other by clapping hands before the faith four times or twice.
2. Extraordinary Informality to Great Hero
Mao Tse-tung, the founder of Communist China, respected one Japanese hero when he was young wandering here and there on the Chinese continent in a great chaos since the debacle of the Qing Dynasty.
Mao Tse-tung respected Takamori Saigo, the most popular hero in the Japanese history. Saigo commanded pro-Imperial forces so as to defeat the Tokugawa samurai troops in the late 19th century, which realized the Meiji Restoration and led to full-scale modernization and Westernization in Japan.
One day when Takamori Saigo was still in one of top positions in the Meiji Government, a high-ranking bureaucrat saw Saigo walking toward him on a road in Tokyo.
Takamori Saigo usually neither dressed up nor was accompanied by attendants; but nobody missed him anywhere, since he was the hero who had led pro-Imperial forces to force the Tokugawa clan to surrender without resorting to desperate city fighting within Tokyo.
Though the bureaucrat was walking in Japanese wooden clogs called "Geta," he stopped, took one leg off a clog or a Geta, and put the foot bottom on the instep of another foot still in a clog or a Geta.
He was thus standing and balancing on two legs but both the feet on one Geta, emptying another Geta, though completely taking off both the feet out of Getas and kneeling on the ground might have been the formal way of showing the utmost respect to the Generalissimo in older samurai ages.
Takamori Saigo, the first full general of the Imperial Army of Japan, looked satisfactory but just walked by the bureaucrat who looked deeply delighted in saluting to the great hero Saigo.
As I read this story a long time ago, the details might be a little different. But, the point at issue is that an ex-samurai bureaucrat showed an extraordinary manner of greeting to Takamori Saigo every ex-samurai recognized as his hero whose strength had defeated the Tokugawas that had been holding administrative power of the nation for 250 years as the sole leader of the entire samurai class.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saig%C5%8D_Takamori
3. Greeting to the Moon
Japan's moon exploration satellite has sent back to the earth pictures of the moon taken from the altitude of 100km (60 miles) above the surface.
http://www.jaxa.jp/index_e.html
The footage followed a path toward the north pole of the moon from the high-latitude area.
This is the first HDTV images taken from an orbit around the moon and the first full-scale exploration since the Apollo Project.
But, do you think that the moon is full of glee, greeting back to mankind?
Is mankind allowed to greet to the moon so nearly while the earth, a parent planet of the moon, has been tainted by greed further degraded toward the Mafia economy and died with blood of victims of wars, terror, and violence?
Anyway, it must be a space vehicle of Japan, less tainted and died among major players on the earth, that should greet the moon as a representative of nations on the planet Earth for the first time since 1972 when Apollo 17 was launched.
4. Greeting to Jesus Christ
You may like to call Him "Messiah," "Christ," or "My God," when you see Him walking toward you.
I may be allowed to call Him "King of Israelites and Romans."
But, it is said that when a very desperate poor man called Him "Son of David" Jesus Christ listened to his urgent wish and convulsive appeal.
In either case, you have to first check His shoes, sandals, or clogs and then His feet before casting an eye at His fingers, looking more valuable to you than King Midas' fingers, to see how powerful their curing force is.
* * *
(Yet, don't you, whenever you look up at the moon, feel like it is greeting you with tear-provoking efforts to have an apparent size of 29 to 33 arc-minutes while the sun's is 32 arc-minutes?)
"...Look! Here are my mother and my brothers!..."
(Hier sind meine Mutter und meine Bruder!)