News

Jo Feb 7, 2022

Josonjol (Korean bow) is admirable greeting etiquette whereby people can fully express mutual respect and politeness with sincerity. It is one of the good manners and customs of our people, who have had observed noble and elegant proprieties from olden times.

Chairman Kim Jong Il instructed that josonjol is the best of all forms of greetings people exchange with one another.

The term jol (bow), which means “bend one’s back” or “lean forward”, is a pure native word of our country that is indicative of greeting etiquette peculiar to our nation.

Josonjol, the traditional greeting of the Korean nation, is divided into sonjol (a bow in standing position) and anjunjol (a bow in kneeling position).

Sonjol, which is made outdoors, is subdivided into deep, common, and half bows according to greeting partners and the degree of bending.

For a deep bow you bend your body down by almost 90 degrees in standing position, for a common bow you bend your back by about 45 degrees, and for a half bow you just bow your head slightly.

Deep bows were made to the people to whom you had to pay your greatest respect such as the elderly and older ones higher in the degree of kin relationship, common bows were exchanged between people of the same age or those including relatives by marriage who had to treat each other with due courtesy although they were not very old, and half bows were made by older people in return for the bows by younger ones.

There were no differences in the way of making sonjol for men and women, and the deeper you bent your upper body, the more courteous it was regarded as. On the contrary, if it lasted too long for courtesy, it might be considered rude as it looked like a silent tribute for the dead.

When they met on the street, Korean people used to either bend their upper bodies or bow their heads in accord with their greeting partners to show respect before they exchanged words of greeting, which shows noble praiseworthy greeting manners of their style they have observed.

Anjunjol is also subdivided into deep, common and half bows according to greeting partners and the degree of bowing heads. It is for indoors and it differs from sonjol for men and women.

As deep bows were regarded as the most courteous one, they were usually made on ceremonial occasions and to people of high social status for the greatest courtesy.

Common bows were usual in everyday life and usually made on the New Year’s Day or to the elders, the relatives in the same degree of kin relationship and the people they first met. In the case of men, however, deep bows were made on the New Year’s Day while common bows, not deep ones, were often made on their wedding days or 60th birthdays. Similarly, deep bows as well as common bows were common for children on the New Year’s Day. That is why a common bow was regarded as similar to a deep bow in terms of courtesy in the past.

Half bows were made by seniors in acknowledgement of juniors’ bows, and also between people on intimate terms. They simply bowed their heads slightly in kneeling positions .

As mentioned above, you could see that although there are many greeting manners in the world, none of them is clearer than josonjol, which is varied in different places and on different occasions.

How our country could be widely known to the world as a country of courteous people in the East is also attributable, to some extent, to the fact that Korean people had created and constantly developed such admirable greeting etiquette.