The Pointless Japanese Art of Business Cards (Part II of II)

(continued from Part I)

It’s not just the sheer frequency of business card exchanges that causes inefficiency. The way it’s done doesn’t help, either.

Soon after I returned to Japan, I got a crash course in business card etiquette from a good friend of mine. She’d grown up in America but had been working in Japan for a while, so she knew exactly the pitfalls I had to avoid.

She first explained that I need to treat every business card I receive as the embodiment of the person who’s giving it to me. Then I’m supposed to show respect to the card/person by receiving it with both hands while bowing and saying a phrase that can only be translated as “I am honored to receive this.”

There’s also strict rules around how I provide the card. I’m supposed to present it with both hands, exuding humility and extending my hands at a position lower than where I received the other person’s card. This last part I quickly abandoned because it leads to an asinine contest of who can present the card lower.

In all this preposterousness, there is one benefit: it becomes quite easy to spot an asshole.

Take, for example, a Japanese attorney with whom I once had the displeasure of working.

When I met this guy, he handed me his business card with one hand, a gesture so rude I haven’t experienced it before or since. His demeanor said “you should be thankful I’ve deemed you worthy enough to receive this from me,” which continued through the meeting when he sat smugly and spoke condescendingly.

Afterwards, I did a quick Internet search and found his Japanese Wikipedia page, which revealed that he’d been reprimanded by the bar association twice, first for defaming a neighbor in a property dispute, then for making misleading submissions to the court. He subsequently received a third discipline for making groundless claim to the disciplinary board with regards to his adversary. For this last offense, his license was suspended for two months, which is unusually severe in Japan.

Since learning of all this, he has been on my exclusive list of “People I’d Kick the Shit Out of If I Ran into on the Streets.”

In you want to avoid the same fate, I recommend you start by first learning the otherwise pointless art of exchanging business cards.