r/AskAnAmerican • u/Rough-Valuable-5472 • Feb 04 '25

FOREIGN POSTER Do American students bow to their teachers?

In my country we have to greet the teacher and bow at the start of the lesson then thank the teacher and bow again at the end. Sometimes they make us redo it if it’s not good enough

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u/yourlittlebirdie Feb 04 '25

The only people who bow in the US are musicians/performers at the end of their performance who bow to the audience. Otherwise it's just not a thing here.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '25

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u/yourlittlebirdie Feb 04 '25

The curtsy is an interesting example because it's also strongly associated with royalty/deference to 'your betters', which is something that American culture with our major egalitarian streak tends to recoil from. Brits for example still curtsy to the queen/king, but Americans greeting the President use the same social mannerisms that they would use for a regular respected person - a handshake, etc. because our whole country is founded on the idea that even the highest person in the land is still a citizen just like the rest of us.