JAPANESE BUSINESS MEN.

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3054, 16 April 1917, Page 8

JAPANESE BUSINESS MEN.

-• « ■ HOW NOT TO APPROACH THEM. NO "SLAP-IN-THE-BACK" DIPLOMACY. On the Pacific liner bound foi\ Yokohama was a confident American salesman. His "line" was hardware, and his territory had included every city in the West.

"I'll sweep through Japan liko a Kansas tornado," ho boasted genully over his cigar; "then sell China, India, and Australia. It's easy. I've gob the goods, and they need them. A slap ou the back'll do it. I'll be back iu New York in six months with orders enough to keep my factory humming." A month later I met the: travelling man ou the Ginza, the great shopping street of Tokio.

"How is business?" I asked, as one American citizen to the othor.

"Rotten!" he shouted. "This is a nation, living back in tho days of its grandmothers' funerals. ■ You can't offer them the goods on a silver platter. I'm off for Kobe to catch tho first boat out to Shanghai." The Americanism that wins a sale in Helena, or Seattle, or even Boston, Mass., falls flatin Japan. Many young American business meu, cocksure of themselves, have failed in Japan hecause of their slap-a-victim-on-the-back air and a determination to rush things through and catch the Japanese equivalent of the Twentieth Century to the uext town.

Busiuess is not done that way in Japan. The men who have been mest successful in dealing with the Japanese have fallen in with the 'customs of the country, have gracefully shaped themselves in the Oriental mould. Thoso who have stayed and prospered recommend to others the observance of social details that probe down into a psycology that has little in common with. Wall Street. For one thing, proper letters of introduction in,-' Japaneßo business circles are almost a gilt-edged security; Japanese business men are very tenacious of old habits and traditions, and- new friends must prove their worth. It must be remembered that fifteen years ago it.was impossible lor a foreigner to see a, Japanese business man at all. Business had to be transacted through a ban to or-clerk, who acted as an emissary from the mysterious Japanese in the interior to the foreigner waiting in some open port. It is only in the last few years that office bvildings of a European type have syiung into being, where the more prominent business men are accessible to those who have the proper introductions. Europeans with the real savoir-faire get a proper entry into the charmed circle by arranging an entertainment at a teahouse and by offering presents of cake and silk. In any case,.it is most awkward to blunder directly wto the purpose of the visit the moment the prospective buyer politely bows tis guest into the seat of honour. Ir is usual to pass the time of day, <lr,nk many cups of tea, inquire after the health of the honourable niothor and all the children}' and indulge in all scrts of irrelevant pleasantries. HVkvnvs why the foreigner has come, iae foreigner knows he knows, but it would be" fatal to bend these parallel lines to the intersecting point before the proper time. An unlimited amount of p.tience and unfailing good humour are the two greatest assets of the American' who wishes to open business rolatmis ,with the Japanese.—New York "Evening l'ost."