Name card
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The Japanese name card (meishi) is similar to its Western counterpart in
being a small oblong card giving the owner's name, title, company, address
and so on. However, in Japan it is not simply a reference but, rather, an
essential part of the process of meeting strangers on all but very informal
occasions. In Japan, the company or group to which a person belongs is more
important than his qualities as an individual and a man's position in that
company is extremely important to the dynamics of any kind of meeting; the
meishi provides an instant status-reference and allows business
introductions to proceed smoothly. On a more practical level, the meishi
indicates the correct characters to be used when writing the person's name
(due to the complexity of the Japanese language, this is not always
apparent from sound alone).
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