Asahi: Japanese still getting a grip on handshaking
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), a Civil War hero who became the 18th president of the United States, visited Japan in the early Meiji Era (1868-1912) and shook hands with Emperor Meiji. A U.S. newspaper reporter accompanying Grant stated in his story that Emperor Meiji was "the first Japanese emperor to shake hands," and that the emperor looked nervous and clumsy when he did so...Awkward as the emperor was in his handshake, the nation had no choice but to get used to this custom once it opened itself to the world... According to Masaichi Nomura, a professor at the National Museum of Ethnology and an expert on forms of greeting in various cultures, shaking hands is becoming common even in nations where bowing and nodding the head were traditionally the dominant gestures of greeting. Nomura notes, however, that for people with a short "history of handshaking," it does not come easily, nor is it easy to refuse it, either. An overly powerful grip is considered unrefined, but a typical Japanese handshake tends to be limp, Nomura says.
