The hubbub about Ms. Yellen bowing to the Chinese diplomat is a beautiful example of someone not understanding protocol in the Far East. That is what Ms. Yellen was supposed to do.
Kowtowing is to all Orientals nothing more than a handshake if they were meeting King Charles or any other official in another country. People in the U.S. do not understand basic protocols.
This reminds me of when then President Clinton was going to Vietnam, a trip originally meant to be on a Naval ship. When the word went out that the Navy ship would fly the Vietnamese flag on the main mast and put the U.S. flag on the after mast at the stern of the ship, people in the U.S. blew up.
Surprisingly, so did high level Navy officers, but that is the way it is in maritime protocol. The Naval officers that blew up should have known better. It is not a recent gesture, it has been going on for years. When a ship from a foreign country either anchors or ties up in another country, the flag of the host nation goes up the main mast and the U.S. Ensign (that is the flag) goes astern. It is merely a common courtesy and has been that way for a long time. You can go to Savannah where numerous foreign ships come in, even Chinese, you will see that all ships from foreign countries will fly the U.S. flag from their main mast and their country’s flag goes astern.
This brings to mind an incident in the Pacific when a submarine surfaced and in the process hit a Japanese fishing ship or boat and made it capsize. It was a serious international problem and we sent a diplomat (I do not remember who it was) to Japan to rectify the international problem. I will assume that the U.S. diplomat was the ambassador to Japan. When the man met with Emperor Hirohito, he did a deep kowtow, a gesture that eased the situation. I would recommend that the readers of this letter look up kowtow on Wikipedia, it takes the situation to extremes, but when meeting a diplomat of an Oriental country, it is almost, I would say mandatory, to kowtow.
It depends which Oriental country you are in and the level of the diplomat you are meeting, The kowtow does not need to go to the extremes that Wikipedia says, if it is a lower level kowtow, the higher the left, the deeper you bow.
If you have been to one of the Oriental countries, simply meeting someone on the street, you do a slight bow as a sign of respect. I have been to Vietnam, China, Japan and Taiwan and it is commonplace to do that. I have been home from over there since 1968 but still I will show that type of respect to Orientals that I meet in the U.S. It is courtesy and that is all.
Poor Marsha Blackburn, if I were to be president I would make her an ambassador to S. Korea or Japan and she would learn something and she would learn quick. The degree at which one kowtows depends on the level of the person in their government. A good course in Cultural Anthropology would do her well. Ms. Yellen was simply doing what should have been done.
When I was at sea, which was during the Cold War with Russia, if we encountered a Russian ship, out of respect, we dipped our flag and they did the same.
Raleigh C. Perry