George Mikes narrates two very unique habits of the people noticed by every tourist in Japan. One of them is their mannerism of bowing. However, the author’s description is quite packed with humour as well as admiration. He calls the bowing habit of the Japanese a ‘mania’ and says “everybody keeps bowing to everyone else, with the ceremonious solemnity of a courtier yet with a great deal of natural and inimitable grace”. Interspersed in his description of their bowing, there are certain statements which make the description sound humorous in a subtle way.

They are

• After a few hours you start bowing yourself; you bow to the wrong man at the wrong time; you do not clasp your hands in front of you which is bad, or you do which is worse.
• If two Japanese bow, neither is to straighten up before the other stands erect in front of him. 
• saw babies carried in Japanese style on their mothers’ backs in clever little saddles, and whenever the mother bowed, the baby bowed too, somewhat condescendingly, from his majestic height.
• Bowing girls in Japanese stores stand at the top of escalators and their only duty is to bow deeply and deferentially to all and sundry.
• The ticket checking conductors on the fast Tokaido Line, march to the middle of the coach and bow ceremoniously in both directions before checking the tickets.
• About the deer in ‘Nara’, the author comments, “it is something genetic and is in the blood of Japanese deer”.
• At the bus-stop, “the bowing gentlemen are transformed into savages” as soon as a bus arrives.