Bowing avoid bumping heads. The kowtow is the highest sign of reverence in Han Chinese culture, but its use has become extremely rare since the collapse of Imperial China. In many situations, the standing bow has replaced the kowtow. However, in modern Chinese societies, bowing is not as formalized as in Japan, South Korea and North Korea. Bowing is normally reserved for occasions such as marriage ceremonies and as a gesture of respect for the deceased, although it still sometimes used for more formal greetings. In China, three bows are customarily executed at funerals including state funerals, ancestral worship, and at
OK (gesture) digits extended, appear in Greece at least as early as the fifth century B.C.E., and can be seen on painted vases as an expression of love, with thumb and forefinger mimicking kissing lips. When proffered by one person toward another in Ancient Greece, the gesture was of one professing their love for another, and the sentiment was conveyed more in the touching of fingertips than in the ring that they formed. As an expression of assent and approval, the gesture can be traced back to first century Rome where the rhetorician Quintilian is recorded as having used it. Quintilian's "chironomy"