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While such gestures as tipping one's hat as one passed others on the street could be considered salutes, the most common civilian salute is rendered to the flag. In the United States, civilians salute the flag by placing their right hands over their hearts. (Men remove any headgear and hold it over their hearts, if applicable.) In Latin America, especially in Mexico, a salute similar to the United States military's salute (see below), but the hand is placed across the left chest with the palm facing the ground. (For a demonstration, see the Richard Dreyfuss movie Moon Over Parador.)
The raised clenched fist was popularized by the Communist Party, and in some locations it maintains that association. In the United States, however, its antecedents have been forgotten and it has become a generic gesture of solidarity and determination.
Many different gestures are used throughout the world as simple greetings. In "Western" cultures, the handshake is very common, though it has numerous subtle variations of grip strength, amount of "pumping" involved, and use of the left hand.
In Japanese and Korean cultures, a simple bow from the waist (rei in Japanese, panbae in Korean) is used, with many regional variations seen. The Japanese keep the palms of their hands touching the fronts of the thighs, but Koreans hold their hands in hapjang (or hap-ch'ang): palms pressed together and fingers near vertical, a position similar to that usually associated with Christian prayer. This gesture is not found in Chinese societies in daily life, and a slight bow is used only in paying respects to the dead.
The Arabic term salaam , literally "peace" from the spoken greeting that accompanies the gesture, refers to a low bow performed while placing the right palm on the forehead. Some cultures use hugs and kisses even between two men, but those gestures show an existing degree of intimacy and are not used between total strangers. All of these gestures are being supplemented or completely displaced by the handshake in areas with large amounts of business contact with the West.
These bows indicate respect and acknowledgement of social rank, but do not necessarily imply obeisance.
An obeisance is a gesture not only of respect but also of submission. Such gestures are rarer in cultures that do not have strong class structures; citizens of the United States, for example, often react with hostility to the idea of bowing to an authority figure. The distinction between a formally polite greeting and an obeisance is often hard to make; for example, proskynesis (Greek for "kissing towards") is described by the Greek researcher Herodotus of Halicarnassus, who lived in the 5th century BC in his Histories 1.134:
After his conquest of Persia, Alexander the Greatbust of Alexander the Great Alexander III (late July, 356 BC June 10, 323 BC), King of Macedon ( 336 BC-323 BC), known as Alexander the Great was one of the most successful military commanders of the ancient world. Following the unification of the multipl introduced Persian etiquette into his own court, including the practice of proskynesis. Visitors, depending on their ranks, would have to prostrate themselves, bow to, kneel in front of, or kiss the king. His Greek and MacedoniaAlexander the Great, king of ancient Macedon, on the waterfront at Thessaloniki, capital of Greek Macedonia Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in south-eastern Europe with an area of around 67,000 square kilometres an subjects objected to this practice, as they considered these rituals only suitable to the gods.
In countries with recognized social classes, bowing to nobility and royalty is customary. Standing bows of obeisance all involve bending forward from the waist with the eyes downcast, though variations in the placement of the arms and feet are seen. In western European cultures, women do not bow, they "curtsey" (a contraction of "courtesy" that became its own word), a movement which one foot is moved back and the entire body lowered to a crouch while the head is bowed.
More elaborate gestures of obeisance are used in formal conditions. The Chinese languageThe Chinese language (/, /, or ; pinyin: hany, huay, or zhongwen) is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. Although most Chinese view the many varieties of spoken Chinese as a single language, regional variations in spoken language are compara term 叩頭 (literally "bump head", spelled ke4 tou3 in pinyinPinyin (, pinyin) literally means "join together sounds" (a less literal translation being "phoneticize", "spell" or "transcription") in Chinese and usually refers to Hany pinyin (, literal meaning: " Han language pinyin"), which is a system of romanizati and " kowtowKowtow from the Chinese term kou tou , is the act of deep respect shown by kneeling and bowing so low as to touch the head to the ground. While the phrase ke tou is often used in lieu of the former in modern Chinese, the meaning is somewhat altered: kou o" in English) refers to the act of deep respect shown by bowing so low as to touch the head to the ground. It begins kneeling and sitting back on the heels, with the hands on the thighs. The hands are then brought forward to the floor in front of the knees and the body inclined toward the horizontal. Whether or not the head is bowed as well reflects the degree of submission shown -- in martial arts practices, for example, the neck is kept straight, but in religious ceremonies the forehead touches the ground.
Many religious believers kneel in prayerPrayer is an effort to communicate with a God, or to some deity or deities, either to offer praise to the deity, to make a request of the deity, or simply to express one's thoughts and emotions to the deity. There are a variety approaches to understanding, and some ( Roman CatholicsThis article considers Catholicism in the broadest ecclesiastical sense. See Catholicism (disambiguation) for alternative meanings Catholicism has two main ecclesiastical meanings, described in Webster's Dictionary as: a) "the whole orthodox Christian chu, Orthodox, and, rarely, Anglicans) genuflect, bending one knee to touch the ground, at various points during religious services. During Islamic prayer, a kneeling bow called sajdah is used, with forehead, nose, hands, knees, and toes all touching the ground.
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