Standard business cards are exchanged every day by Japanese from all walks of life. Does that seem funny? Carrying cards for purposes of introduction has long been a popular custom in that country, not just for salarymen but many other kinds of people as well. In fact, the practice is so commonplace that it’s become quite the stereotype for Japanese people the world over!
The movie “Good Morning” parodies this cultural tendency to substitute meaningless signs and symbols for real conversation and real connections. While set in postwar Japan, the society shown onscreen is a fairly comfortable one and would not seem too much out of place in our own times for the most part. This was a long time before handing out business cards became a customary greeting on par with the handshake, but the psychological motivations remain the same – as so ably and mostly humorously pointed out by the movie.
Of course, all human societies revolve around signs and symbols; we are creatures whose first impulse seems to be to indulge in abstract thinking. Yet traditionally in Japan such impulses have achieved a very developed form, such that the very language makes constant use of different suffixes and the like in order to denote social standing between speakers!
And so today’s practice of trading business cards. This way, one knows immediately one’s place, which is to say, how to relate to one another. This is Japan, after all, a country with a cultural heritage that doesn’t pretend to be egalitarian and so has no qualms about formally identifying people’s social standings.
Perhaps a little militaristic, yes. Not one unique in kind to Japan, it must be noted again, but certainly one with few peers elsewhere insofar as degree, intensity, is concerned.
And it happens to be one that’s great for business!
Business cards. Yes, too much can be made out of such simple things. Still, there’s enough cause for a consideration: things don’t just happen for no reason at all.
Americans trade business cards quite often, too. Indeed, the practice originated in the West, with Europe and America. But there isn’t the same “moral authority,” for lack of a better phrase – there isn’t the same “cultural force” (for continuing want of a good way of putting things) – attached to the business card in the West as there is in Japan.