It’s the hanko, Japan’s version of the signature. “I don’t exist in this society without my hanko,” said Kyuyoh Ishikawa, a calligrapher and director of Kyoto Seika University’s ...

Japanese regularly validate day-to-day documents, as well as official forms, with hanko, personal seals made from wood, plastic, and other materials. These stamps, which carry the same weight as ...

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Taro Kono catalogued almost 15,000 occasions when the only way to satisfy Japan’s fastidious bureaucracy ...

In addition to Japan’s strange fixation on the fax machine, there is another object, something much, much older, that they just can’t seem to move on from – the hanko, or, as it is known in English, ...

A custom originally imported from China more than a thousand years ago, the use of hanko seals was formalized by Japan's government in the mid-1800s. With far more people working from home in ...

The hanko are used in Japan instead of a person's signature and they are carefully guarded. The concept of an official seal was first introduced from China around 2,000 years ago and initially ...

Hanko is ubiquitous in Japanese society, used in at least 10,000 government processes, including driver's license applications and tax returns. Its use is mandated by law in some of these cases ...

TOKYO: For centuries, hanko or handcrafted name seals have been an integral part of Japan’s culture. Using hanko as a stamp of authenticity became a common practice in Japan a few centuries ...

Though signing things by hand is slowly gaining more popularity in Japan, most official processes still rely on using hanko, a name stamp used to prove your identity. They’re used for anything from ...

But do those names really exist? I went to Higashi Ward in Fukuoka, southwestern Japan, to a specialist hanko seals shop that I previously visited three years ago while reporting another story.