In Japan hierarchy is important, when the Japanese meet it is usually quite formal. Business cards may be exchanged and should be shown respect, looked at closely and even admired. To a Westerner it is a little strange to need to know if your are of a "higher" or "lower" standing than the person you are conversing with. The language may also change, one person may adopt the "polite" form while the other adopts a more "common" form in word selection.
In the workplace your (Immediate) Boss would be Joushi 上司
Your (Immediate) Subordinate would be Buka 部下
Your (Immediate) Senior is Senpai 先輩
and your (Immediate) Junior kohai 後輩
The last two are regularly used in Martial Arts, anyway I digress .....
We have on file a large selection of martial art ranks, titles etc, but I also have Japanese business titles. So when a client was asking for a design for a hanko that he could use in his position of General Manager we had a source to reference.
General Manager is Buchou 部長. We also used the kanji for Great Britain - Eikoku - 英国. There other names that can be used for the UK etc, but Eikoku is the term the organisation has used in the past .
We have never mixed Kanji and English text in a Hanko before and not sure how the concept arose but we really like it. The Client was offered a more traditional stamp with kanji only, but we really like this mix of East and West, hope you do too.
If you are interested in purchasing a hanko, please contact us with some initial details of your requirements to sotosabisu@btinternet.com
Current costings can be found in the relevant shop page please click on the button below to view.
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