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It was in a Japanese Hotel in northern China that Pat McConnell and I had our experience with the strange ways and customs of Japan. Pat was taking the pictures and I was writing the stories.

We thought it would be an unusual experience to stay all night at a regular Japanese Inn. We stayed.

That night, much to the amusement, of the missionaries who stayed with us, three beautiful Japanese girls came gracefully into the cold room where we had started to take our clothes off.

They bowed several times as they came with cups of hot tea.

They seemed to pay particular attention to me.

All three of them bowed to me first and then each proceeded to select an individual man to whom they served tea.

I took it for granted that they had paid this particular attention to me because of some special characteristic of masculine beauty or intellectual appearance; or atmosphere of greatness that must have hovered about me in some unknown fashion.

I made the mistake of swelling up with pride and bragging about this attention that I had received.

"Ah, that's because of your bald head. They think that you are the old man of the party. They have great respect for old age!" the missionary said with a roar of laughter.