The business card: Japan's coat of arms


The fact that the Japanese treat business cards differently than American business people is no real secret. I have seen dozens of guidebooks and websites that show the deeply bowing blonde-haired businessman passing his business card to his Japanese associate. It's easy to remember the gestures to not offend your Japanese business partner, but we also want to look a little deeper into the meaning behind the gestures to help create understanding in this important part of inter-cultural communication.

For Americans, a business card is simply a name tag, a souvenir as a reminder of a first meeting. For the Japanese it is much more than that. It is good to think of a business card as an extension of the person you are meeting. Treat it as you would a picture of his children, or as an expensive family heirloom. Look at it. Comment on it. Treat it with delicacy. Knowing this, you don't have to worry about the long lists of "do's" and "don'ts" about business cards we often run into.

While in the US the business card is received, then usually quickly filed away in a wallet or card holder to be stapled to a Rolodex when back at the office. Next time try this: at a business meeting take advantage of the Japanese system of placing your associates' cards in seating order in front of you. No one will take offense if you need to take a few glances before you can remember a new acquaintance's name, and it is certainly better than getting it wrong. Almost every Japanese person I know, who lives or does work in the US, has a story of how an associate forgot or butchered her name. The stories are always told with a chuckle, and Japanese people know thier names can be hard for non-Japanese people to say and remember.

The opposite is also true. That's why we recommend people doing business in Japan or with Japanese people get thier business cards translated into Japanese. We encourage this for two main reasons: 1) it shows your Japanese associate that you care about their needs enough to take the time to get the cards made. It says "This guy is prepared to meet people half-way. And 2) companies that send employess (i.e. sales and marketing) to Japan with bilingual business cards get more call-backs than those that don't. Even though all Japanese study English and know the alphabet, non-Japanese names can be intimidating. Who wants to embarrass themselves by calling up a new company and mispronouncing the name of the person you wish to speak with to the receptionist, a complete stranger? Bilingual cards include company and indivudual names in Japanese so the receiver doesn't need to feel intimated by a less than familiar name.

And how likely are you to call-back a potential client when the card he gave you is only in Japanese if you don't speak Japanese?

Surveys show that Japanese businessmen, (indeed it's businessmen surveyed), prioritize company over family, where Americans value family over company. (Americans also value themselves over their company). This is a topic we will explore deeper in a future post, but for now it's good to keep in mind when receiving a Japanese person's business card. He may actually value it more than the picture of his children or family heirloom.