USA. Every store shouts the same two words when you enter: "Welcome in!"
The first time, I stopped in the doorway and answered formally. "I am honored to be received." By the time I finished my bow, the clerk was gone. Folding shirts somewhere. The welcome had been issued, and the issuer had moved on.
In Japan, a greeting is a transaction. Both sides complete it. Here, apparently, the welcome is fired into the air like a cannon salute, and you simply walk through the smoke.
I investigated. I entered the same store five times in one afternoon.
"Welcome in!" — five times. Equal warmth. ZERO recognition. By the fourth entry I was certain she knew my face. Still: "Welcome in!" Fresh. Bright. Automatic. Like a temple bell that rings whenever the wind moves it.
On the fifth entry, I tested her directly. "It is me again."
"Welcome in!"
Magnificent. The welcome is not FOR you. The welcome is weather that happens to include you. That woman would greet the door itself if the wind opened it, and the door would feel welcomed, because the welcome is real even though it is aimed at nothing.
I asked her, finally: how many times a day do you say it?
She thought. "Like... four hundred?"
Four hundred welcomes a day. That woman has welcomed more souls than most shrines. She should be registered somewhere. I told her this. She said, "Aw."
A bell does not choose who hears it. It rings, and the rung are blessed.
On my way out she called "Have a good one!" — and I, out of pure momentum, replied "Welcome in!"
A silence.
Then she said it back. "Welcome in."
We are both bells now, America. I peaked in your country at 3 p.m. on a Tuesday, in a doorway, and everything since has been descent.