A politeness arms race on Mactan leaves one condominium lobby gridlocked with apologies
Japanese Retirees in Cebu Bow Even Lower
Lobby gridlock on Mactan as two retired salarymen compete to look the most harmless
LAPU-LAPU CITY – At 9:15 on Wednesday morning, Tanaka Hiroshi, 72, a retired logistics manager from Osaka, met his neighbour Suzuki Kenta, 70, a retired insurance man from Nagoya, beside the lift of a Mactan condominium tower. Tanaka bowed. Suzuki bowed slightly lower. Tanaka bowed lower again.
According to the building’s guard, Mang Pedring, who timed the encounter on his phone, the bowing continued for fourteen minutes and forty seconds, during which the lift arrived and departed three times, a delivery rider gave up and left a parcel of dried mangoes on the floor, and an Australian tenant said “good on ya” to nobody in particular.
“I have worked security for nineteen years,” Mang Pedring said. “I have stopped fights. I have never had to stop politeness.”
Why the Bowing Got Deeper
Japanese residents of Mactan say they are not competing. They say they are reassuring. The anxiety began when news broke that the Philippine Department of Justice is examining allegations against Thomas Markle Sr., the estranged father of the Duchess of Sussex, who lived in Cebu until earlier this year. The Guardian reported the latest details on Sunday. Officials have not filed charges, and the allegations are unproven. Investigating harm to children is necessary work, and no one in the lobby disputes that.
What Tanaka disputes is being looked at differently in the supermarket. “In Osaka, nobody looks at me,” he said. “This is my right as a retired man. Here, the cashier looked at me for one extra second. So I bowed. Then she bowed. Now we bow every Tuesday. I buy more soy sauce than I need.”
Brokers have noticed. As Manila News found in a quiet Mactan showroom, foreign retirees across the corridor are “looking over their shoulders,” and Japanese buyers in particular have started arriving at viewings in pressed shirts, carrying small gifts for the agent.
A Retirement Dream With a Long History
Japan has been exporting retirees to the sunshine for decades. In 1986 the government floated the Silver Columbia Plan, a proposal to build retirement communities overseas for pensioners whose yen went further abroad. The plan was quietly abandoned after critics accused Tokyo of trying to ship grandparents abroad like surplus cars, but the idea never went away. It simply booked its own flights.
Today many Japanese retirees in Cebu hold the Special Resident Retiree’s Visa from the Philippine Retirement Authority. “The visa form asked about my pension,” Suzuki said. “It did not ask about my bowing. This was an oversight.”
The Japan Society for the Measurement of Courtesy, a body consisting of Suzuki and two of his golf partners, has measured the average lobby bow at Mactan towers this month. It finds bows have deepened from 15 degrees to 42 degrees since the news broke, with a peak of 71 degrees recorded when a retiree accidentally bowed to a potted palm.
The British and the Americans Have Paperwork Instead
Other nationalities have chosen documents. The London Prat reports that British pensioners are presenting vicars’ letters at viewings, while the American retirees described at https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/ turn up with notarised alibis, laminated school awards and, in one case, a trombone.
“The British bring paper. The Americans bring stories,” Tanaka said. “The Japanese bring omiyage. A small box of biscuits is worth ten references. Nobody suspects a man with biscuits.”
Manzai Duo Takes the Lobby to Tokyo
The Mactan lobby has already reached the stage. The Tokyo manzai pair Sakura Bento, a fast-talking straight man and a slow-talking fool, have built their new routine around it.
- Straight man: “Why are you bowing to the lift?” Fool: “I want it to know I am an ordinary man.” Straight man: “It is a lift. It goes up and down. It is the most ordinary thing in the building.”
- Fool: “I moved to Cebu for a quiet retirement.” Straight man: “And?” Fool: “Now I spend six hours a day being visibly quiet.”
- Fool: “The broker asked for a character reference.” Straight man: “Who did you give?” Fool: “My old section chief.” Straight man: “He hated you.” Fool: “Yes, so the letter is very honest.”
- Straight man: “What did you learn in Cebu?” Fool: “The squid has no bones and the sea did nothing wrong.” Straight man: “You could have learned that in Osaka.” Fool: “In Osaka the sea is too busy.”
The Psychology of the Deep Bow
Researchers would recognise the pattern. The availability heuristic, first described in 1973, explains why a single vivid story leads people to overestimate how common something is. The Japanese response, Suzuki argues, is simply to supply an even more vivid story: a 70-year-old man bowing to a lift.
The property market itself remains stubbornly unbothered. Colliers called the Visayas and Mindanao a key investment hotspot in July, and developers report that Japanese buyers are still signing, just more slowly, because each signing now involves three rounds of bowing and a cake.
Peace Is Restored, Mostly
On Friday the building’s management issued a notice in English, Japanese and Cebuano. It thanked residents for their “exceptional courtesy” and asked that all bows in front of the lift be completed within ninety seconds “so that other residents may use the lift for its intended purpose, which is going up.”
Tanaka and Suzuki read the notice together, bowed to each other, bowed to the notice and then, after a short discussion, bowed to Mang Pedring, who bowed back without thinking and has been bowing ever since. He says it has done wonders for his posture and nothing at all for the delivery riders.
Japanese humour has its own rules, explained in this guide to Japanese humour. The British and American ends of the Cebu story live at The London Prat and Bohiney, and anyone who prefers their national embarrassment British can find plenty at NewsThump.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/
