The after-lunch business meeting started nicely. The black suits from the New York public relations firm sat on one side. Across the table were the Japanese suits, prospective clients.
Then, during the long pauses for translation, one mind wandered. The lead New Yorker started toying with the lead Tokyoite's business card. Then, almost unconsciously, a convenient corner found its way to the New Yorker's mouth, where a lunch morsel was lodged between incisors.
"I wanted to die, I wanted to get out of that office, I wanted to get out of that building," recalled Peter McKillop, who works in Hong Kong for an American bank. "And he didn't stop. He carefully worked his way around. Upper and lower teeth."
No contract.
Yes, something as seemingly inconsequential as the mishandling of a business card can be a deal killer in Japan. In a traditional country where rules are often bent for foreigners, it pays to know that a business card should not be bent -- that this elegant, portable extension of the soul should not serve double duty as a tooth pick.
To be sure, much of business in Japan has become globalized. In Tokyo, ATM machines, with their little bowing video bank tellers, increasingly speak computer English. Many American business men and women glide through their assignments here, learning only enough Japanese to interact with taxi drivers and restaurant waiters.
But there are limits to the cultural free pass that many Japanese extend to gaijin, or foreigners.
Arriving in Japan without an ample stock of business cards is akin to arriving barefoot, and central to card etiquette is giving and receiving the card with a proper level of solemnity. Cards should be studied, not shoved in a pocket without a glance.
David Satterwhite, a longtime resident who used to give intercultural business training, recalls meeting with a semiconductor executive from Texas who had returned from Tokyo. "She complained: `I was in charge of the delegation, and they wouldn't look at me, they wouldn't talk to me,"' he said.
"Well, she handed out her business card like a card player - she whipped it across the table, stopping just in front of me," continued Satterwhite, who runs business conferences in Japan.
Card etiquette also includes refraining from scribbling little identifying notes on cards, like "short," or "white shirt" or "glasses."
"For Japanese people, this is horrendous," said Kumi Sato, the US-educated president of Cosmo Public Relations. "We think, `Here's this gaijin, writing on our business cards because we all look alike to him.'"
The guiding principle in Japan, a society where 126 million people live in an area the size of California, is harmony. One manifestation of this cultural imperative is an elaborate repertory of bows for greeting people of various ranks and various occasions.
For Americans, steeped in 225 years of revolutionary republicanism, bowing is one abdominal exercise still left out of most aerobic videos. In Japan, they can get by with faking it, inclining their head with a nod and a little upper body motion. Escaping major bowing comes under the cultural heading of letting foreigners be foreigners, within limits.
Likewise, a nondrinking American banker who did a stint in Tokyo in the late 1980s says he got through after-work drinking sessions in the Ginza by passing his hand over his glass and saying kyokai, or church. As long as he kept everyone else's glasses filled, he was not seen as anti-social.
TYPHOON: The storm’s path indicates a high possibility of Krathon making landfall in Pingtung County, depending on when the storm turns north, the CWA said Typhoon Krathon is strengthening and is more likely to make landfall in Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said in a forecast released yesterday afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the CWA’s updated sea warning for Krathon showed that the storm was about 430km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point. It was moving in west-northwest at 9kph, with maximum sustained winds of 119kph and gusts of up to 155kph, CWA data showed. Krathon is expected to move further west before turning north tomorrow, CWA forecaster Wu Wan-hua (伍婉華) said. The CWA’s latest forecast and other countries’ projections of the storm’s path indicate a higher
SLOW-MOVING STORM: The typhoon has started moving north, but at a very slow pace, adding uncertainty to the extent of its impact on the nation Work and classes have been canceled across the nation today because of Typhoon Krathon, with residents in the south advised to brace for winds that could reach force 17 on the Beaufort scale as the Central Weather Administration (CWA) forecast that the storm would make landfall there. Force 17 wind with speeds of 56.1 to 61.2 meters per second, the highest number on the Beaufort scale, rarely occur and could cause serious damage. Krathon could be the second typhoon to land in southwestern Taiwan, following typhoon Elsie in 1996, CWA records showed. As of 8pm yesterday, the typhoon’s center was 180km
TYPHOON DAY: Taitung, Pingtung, Tainan, Chiayi, Hualien and Kaohsiung canceled work and classes today. The storm is to start moving north this afternoon The outer rim of Typhoon Krathon made landfall in Taitung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春半島) at about noon yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, adding that the eye of the storm was expected to hit land tomorrow. The CWA at 2:30pm yesterday issued a land alert for Krathon after issuing a sea alert on Sunday. It also expanded the scope of the sea alert to include waters north of Taiwan Strait, in addition to its south, from the Bashi Channel to the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島). As of 6pm yesterday, the typhoon’s center was 160km south of
STILL DANGEROUS: The typhoon was expected to weaken, but it would still maintain its structure, with high winds and heavy rain, the weather agency said One person had died amid heavy winds and rain brought by Typhoon Krathon, while 70 were injured and two people were unaccounted for, the Central Emergency Operation Center said yesterday, while work and classes have been canceled nationwide today for the second day. The Hualien County Fire Department said that a man in his 70s had fallen to his death at about 11am on Tuesday while trimming a tree at his home in Shoufeng Township (壽豐). Meanwhile, the Yunlin County Fire Department received a report of a person falling into the sea at about 1pm on Tuesday, but had to suspend search-and-rescue
RSS