Chinese restaurant in my neighborhood has a new hire. The youth apparently takes to heart advice from some books or from some waiting schools: every time he checks on a table, he would brace himself with his arms, one on the stomach, one on back, 45-degree, and bow slightly. He even keeps that way when he turns.
I feel so sorry for him I try to look away hoping he would notice no, no, no. But I commit conflicting feedback by leaving a big tip just because I feel sorry for him.
But my wondering is: is there a name for it -that gesture to show respect with the bracing arms? Is it not a standard but outdated thing that you often see in movies about the old English aristocrats? A life theater's curtain thing? Another question: am I all wrong to feel weird about it in restaurant?
It's telling that this is happening in a Chinese restaurant, because the term that comes to mind is kow-tow, from a mostly obsolete Chinese custom. The original, though, involves kneeling and bowing forward so far that the forehead touches the ground, so the version you observe is a highly stylized adaptation.
It seems like the kind of bow little boys make after a performance on the school stage. I can't find anything that matches the description affiliated with any culture, ever.
I vaguely associate that gesture with life performers at curtain. Perhaps that is where school children pick it up to do with their school plays .
There are many images like one below that come up with "English butler." "Kow tow," the ancient Chinese style prostration, could be either a predecessor or successor, or neither.
Perhaps there is no specific name to that body language. Though it is pretty distinctive and recognizable, it's just a thing done instinctively cross-cultures for "at your service."
I've been a stage actor (and singer and instrumentalist) for more than fifty years, and I've never known a serious performer to bow in this fashion. I've performed in shows with inexperienced actors, children and adults, in the cast who bowed that way when first rehearsing the bows, and invariably someone took them quietly aside and they never did it again. I'm not sure where they've seen it, though I have, too, somewhere. I think there's a mixture of believing it's right and not knowing what to do with their hands.
A similar phenomenon occurs when people pose for photographs by standing with their hands clasped low in front of them. My favorite director and long-time mentor calls this the fig-leaf position, and cautions his actors to use absolutely never – it telegraphs insecurity.