> This video highlights some of the more interesting ones (e.g. refusing to accept an apology being offensive) I didn't catch that. He only offered a somewhat

> This video highlights some of the more interesting ones (e.g. refusing to accept an apology being offensive) I didn't catch that. He only offered a somewhat contrived example of it being rude to "take back" an apology (which is, of course, not a thing) after being told it "wasn't owed". His thesis was, AFAICT, that this is an example of empty gestures, that we don't really mean it. However, that falls flat with the apology example. An apology that is actually sincere isn't something that can be taken back, so it could only be empty if it were insincere, and in his anecdote, he did not even imply insincincerity. He talks about the words not making sense when analyzes, which I assume is in reference to the fact that "you don't owe me an apology" sounds like a rejection of the apology, but, it isn't. If it's truthful and can be interpreted literally, then no offense was taken in the first place. If it's untruthful, then offense was taken but the apology was accepted (and presumably the insincerety was a lie told to spare further bad feelings). Either way, no offense remained on the part of the apology recipient. None of that was empty gesture, and there was only one opportunity for lying to spare someone's feelings (though this was not called out in the video). The rest was about Japan and the old Soviet bloc. I think you need to come up with a better example of a "weird dance" in Western culture, preferably with more observers than just the (usually two) participants.