The Art of Business Card Giving: an East West Perspective
Deborah Swallow | August 22nd, 2009 in : cross-cultural differences, East Asia, Europe, General, North America
I got the following story from David Willoughby, a freelance writer now living in Tokyo:
Whilst in Japan, I happened to find myself seated next to another foreigner who recognised me from the gallery event we had both just attended. We chatted amicably for a while … A little while later, he stood up to leave. “If you like art,” he said to me, almost as an afterthought, “you might be interested in this.” And he nonchalantly tossed onto my table his business card on which he had biro’d the details of some upcoming event he was attending.
It wasn’t just the contrived nature of his networking spiel that made the exchange so unforgettable, it was in the small details. It was in the way in which he dealt his card onto the table rather than to me directly, minimising the chance that it might be rejected. It was in the fact that he waited until the final seconds of our encounter to produce it so that neither of us would have to endure the awkwardness of the moment. Before I had a chance to digest what was written on the card he had vanished.
The exchange would have been amusing for any watching Japanese who are, of course, far more comfortable with the use of business cards, or ‘meishi’. In the West, business cards are strictly for networking and careful consideration must be made about if and when to proffer the card – not so in Japan.
Find more information about cross cultural differences in the exchange of business cards by clicking on the following links:
Top Ten Tips on passing business cards with cultural fluency
Japan: everything you need to know about business card ‘meishi’ etiquette
U.S., Britain, Australia: Business Card Etiquette
The art of business card giving: an East West perspective
Watch a Video on Chinese Business Etiquette
Tags: business card giving, east west differences, Japan, the West
Hello, I'm Deborah Swallow and, for the last fifteen years, I've worked in over thirty countries addressing the complexities of people working internationally across multiple cultures, so individuals and organisations alike can gain an authentic competitive edge and win in international markets. 
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