Stamp instead of signature
When the Japanese open a bank account, sign an agreement, or receive a parcel or registered letter from a courier, in all these and many other cases they put a personal hanko stamp on the documents instead of a signature.
Individuals and companies use hanko to verify their identity. The bright red ink used for the imprint is called syuniku, and the imprint itself on paper is called inkan. The first personalized seals appeared approximately five thousand years BC in Mesopotamia. The most ancient seal currently existing in Japan is considered to be the so-called “seal of the Khan of the Japanese country of Na.” This gold seal was given to the Japanese rulers as a gift from Emperor Guang Wu Ti in 57 AD. Currently, it has the status of the most important cultural property of Japan.
On October 1, 1873, the Japanese government issued a decree obliging citizens to use a personal stamp for identification. Japan has officially become the “land of personalized seals.” And although recently the Japanese are increasingly putting a handwritten signature on documents, in the vast majority of cases they cannot do without a personal seal.
In Japanese companies, the documentation that comes to management from subordinates is affixed with a so-called authorization stamp. Hanko in this case serves as a symbol of power. From the point of view of some people, this is precisely the hidden essence of a personal seal.
What is hanko
All important documents in Japan are signed only with a personal seal, which is called hanko or inkan. In any cases, for example, when you need to get married, buy real estate or get a job, you should put a stamp.
Hanko cannot be bought in a regular store: printing is done by hand to order in a special place, hankoy. Hankoya shops used to be a fixture in every area of Japan, but now that more and more orders are being made online, hankoya is becoming harder to find.
Making a print begins with choosing the material. The choice is quite large, ranging from wood to titanium. The next step is choosing the size and font. The hanko seal must include at least part of the first or last name of its owner. For safety reasons, Japanese people are advised to use their full name for hanko.
Jitsuin – registered seal
There are three main types of personalized seals for personal use: registered seal (jitsuin), banking seal (ginkoin) and everyday seal (mitomein).
The main seal is considered to be jitsuin - a seal officially registered with local governments. It is used to certify documents on the purchase of a car, land or real estate. It is necessary in order to open a bank account, leave a will and conclude an agreement to rent an apartment. Jitsuin can be registered at age fifteen. It is not necessary to be Japanese - foreigners with official registration in Japan can also have jitsuin. After the seal is registered, its owner is issued a seal registration card (inkan kado), upon presentation of which, if necessary, one can obtain a “certificate of seal authenticity.” This system is designed to prevent document forgery.
Seal imprint on documents
A banking seal (ginkoin) is a seal that is registered by a bank when a customer opens a new bank account. However, recently the number of Internet banks and financial institutions with foreign capital has increased, where a client account can be opened without a seal, a handwritten signature is enough. And large financial firms such as Risona Bank and Mitsui Sumitomo Bank are planning to introduce a biometric identification system in the near future. And yet, most Japanese banks still require ginkoin to carry out various banking transactions.
The so-called “everyday seal” (mitomein) is used for formal confirmation of documents that do not have legal significance: postal receipts, various types of statements, official documentation, etc. These seals are inexpensive, their production is put on stream. Some of them are pre-filled with ink (syunik), so there is no need to carry a stamp pad with you. Machine-made stamps with several dozen of the most common surnames are sold in stationery stores and stoen stores. They are much easier to purchase than jitsuin seals or banking seals, which are usually made by hand.
To conclude an agreement with a mobile operator or a rental agreement, a handwritten signature is sometimes not enough, so foreigners who have lived in Japan for a long time eventually need a personal stamp. In some regions, in order for such a seal to be registered with local authorities, it is necessary that the surname on the seal be written not in Latin letters, but in the letters of the katakana phonetic alphabet, which is used in the Japanese language, including for recording foreign names and surnames.
Receipt of the postal parcel is certified by the everyday seal of mitomein
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Yinzhang 印章 (yinzhang) is what they are called.
The art of seal carving flourished during the Qin Dynasty . (221 BC), but existed much earlier. To designate personal items and belongings, “name seals” began to be used, which served in the same way as Japanese coats of arms - for distinction. Then the scope of their use expanded significantly; they were both an attribute of the emperor’s power and a lucky talisman and personal signature of the creators of works of art.
But the making of seals itself became an art; they were made from ivory, metal, wood, the most expensive from jade (汉玉印 - Hàn yù yìn ) or from red stone "tianhuang" (田黄), in the form of figurines (often Shi -zi 狮子 – lion dog) or carved briquette:
We cut out the necessary characters on the back side (round, square or rectangular) in the Zhuanshu 篆書 script (see here: https://www.liveinternet.ru/users/karinalin/post155550046/)), filling the slots with red paint, and the carving itself, according to the name of the writing style is called Zhuanke.
However, now Zhuanshu is not necessarily used, there may be ordinary calligraphy and a modern type of hieroglyphs, however, it is the seal that uses the Zhuan style that is considered classic.
Red color – reflects the nature of “yin”, replaces black in the nature of darkness of the feminine essence, remaining uncolored – white – the light masculine nature of “yang”.
Hence, there are two types of Chinese seals: “Yin” or “Zhiwen 赤文” - a red background and white characters; and “Yang” or “Baiwen 白文” – white background and red characters. This is achieved due to the relief, depending on whether the carved hieroglyphs are convex or pressed inward.
Paint (yin-ni ink clay) was originally made from cinnabar, coral extract with the addition of oils, sometimes even with the addition of dust from precious metals. Rarely, but it happens that it is not red, but in any case, dark is yin.
The hieroglyphs on the seal are arranged from right to left and from top to bottom, as in ordinary oriental vertical writing, the last hieroglyph is often the word “seal” itself, yin 印 or zhang 章 (from yinzhang). But even if there are two hieroglyphs in a line, it is still read from right to left.
1)
姓名印(Xìngmíng yìn) or私印( Sī yìn) - personal seal, seal of private property.
唐為 (Táng wèi) - 1st - Tang Dynasty (618-907), 2nd - for, management, hand, pointer Seal on Tang Dynasty utensils and documents:
汉匈奴破虏长 (Hàn xiōngnú pò lǔ zhǎng) – 1st – Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD); 2nd – core, capital; 3rd – slavery, tyranny. 4th – defeat; 5th – capture; 6th – leader. The founder of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bang, came from peasants. Liu Bang became the leader of the rebels who managed to take the capital Xiangyang and overthrow the extremely unpopular Qin dynasty. Apparently, the press is directly related to these events:
乾隆御笔 (Qiánlóng yùbǐ) - “Brush of the Qian Long Ruler” - the seal of decrees, personal utensils of the Qianlong Emperor, the fourth emperor of the Qing Dynasty (1735-1796). Vases of the emperors of the Qing dynasty, for example, they are called by their name because on the bottom, real vases must have the personal seal of the emperor to whom it belonged, this also applies to other dynasties (although this is not very difficult to fake):
巧工中郎将印 (Qiǎo gōng zhōng láng jiāng yìn) – 1st – skillful, brilliant; 2nd – manager; 3rd – center; 4th – young master; 5th – general; 6th – seal. Seal of a young and intelligent general of the Han era.
武猛校尉 (Wǔ měng xiào wèi) – 1st – warlike; 2nd – cruel; 3rd – officer; 4th – kingdom of Wei (220-266). Its founder was the former Han officer Cao Cao (曹操). The original history of the state of Wei is closely connected with it. Cao Cao spent his entire life in continuous campaigns and battles with other Chinese military leaders. This is his stamp:
魏霸 – 1st – Kingdom of Wei, dynasty; 2nd – tyranny.
王纲私印 (Wáng gāng sī yìn) – 1st – emperor; 2nd – order, 3.4th – personal seal. Printing of edicts of the emperors of the Wei Dynasty.
三石斋王臻之章 (Sānshí zhāi wáng zhēn zhī zhāng) – 1st – three; 2nd – stone; 3rd – asceticism, following Buddhist abstinence; 4th – emperor; 5th – commander; 6th - his, one’s own; 7th – seal (zhang). “The seal of the emperor walking the path of 3 stones - the virtues of Buddhism” (or maybe Confucianism) or “The Seal of Sanshi Zhai” - the name of some ruler.
丞相博阳侯 (Chéngxiàng bó yáng hóu) – 1st – assistant to the governor, assistant; 2nd – mutual, equal; 3rd – rich; 4th – light male “yang”; Mr./Last name. Personal seal with epithets such as “Generous, worthy and illustrious Mr. Howe – Assistant to the Governor.” Although, Hou is also a kingdom of the late Qin period (384 AD), and perhaps this is not an assistant, but a member of the imperial family.
东郡守丞 (Dōngjùn shǒu chéng) – 1st – east; 2nd – division; 3rd – protection, defense; 4th – responsible. Seal of the military commander of the eastern defensive division.
2)
表字印(Bi ǎ o zì yìn ) - stamp of the name of creative figures, often a pseudonym - literature, painting, etc. There is also a variety别号印(bié hào yìn) - a seal with a pseudonym, perhaps more than one, of the owner of the seal, not necessarily a creator of art, but a fairly famous person. 3)封泥(Fēng ní) - the seal that seals the envelope with the letter.
御府丞印 – 1st – for transportation; 2nd – state department; 3rd – responsible; 4th – seal.
4)
斋馆印(Zhāi gu ǎ n yìn) - seal of the name of the company, division, group of responsible persons.
殿中都尉 (Diànzhōng dū wèi) - 1st - palace, temple; 2nd – middle, main; 3rd – refined, metropolitan; 4th – Wei Dynasty. Seal of the stewards of the affairs of the imperial court or the main temple:
王金 (Wáng jīn) – 1st – Emperor; 2nd – gold. Imperial treasury:
5)
收藏印(Shōucáng yìn) - a collector’s stamp on objects of art he acquired - books, calligraphic and pictorial scrolls - could contain words of admiration for the skill of their author. Of course, confusion immediately arises about who is the collector and who is the author, and without knowledge of the history of Chinese antiques and, most importantly, the personalities involved in this, it is difficult to understand; usually such scrolls have several seals:
Exquisite print as a gift
Beautiful prints for every taste
Recently, it has become fashionable to give a seal as a holiday gift on the occasion of the birth of a child and for a wedding - to a bride who changes her last name to her husband's last name. Seals decorated with rhinestones, as well as stamps with Japanese motifs, coated with Japanese paper or varnished, are very popular among the female population of Japan. Prints with characters from comics and cartoons, sets of prints and cases, designed in the same style - children like this. Men prefer more solid options - for example, seals made from African buffalo horn.
The vending machine for personalized stamps is not only convenient, but also attracts the attention of tourists
Vending machine for personalized stamps in the Don Quixote chain store (left); after all the fields on the touch panel are filled in, the machine starts working (top right); selecting the seal body (bottom right)
Many stamp making stores have introduced a service for replacing a name written in Latin with a name written in hieroglyphs or katakana, which makes it possible to make stamps for foreigners. Prints can also be ordered online.
In the Tokyu Hands retail chain, you can pay from 700 to 1000 yen and receive a ready-made personalized stamp within 30 minutes. The service for high-speed stamp production is in demand among tourists who take Japanese seals home as souvenirs. And in the stores of the Don Quixote retail chain there are machines for making and selling hanko. These machines also make stamps with names in katakana. The choice of materials is quite wide, the price ranges from 500 to 5000 yen, and the production time is 5-10 minutes.
Stamp Corner at Itoya Store in Ginza
The Itoya store in Ginza recently began providing a service for making stamps specifically for foreign names, which are converted into Japanese characters (kanji), each of which can represent up to 4 characters of the alphabet. The stamps take about 30 minutes to produce and cost between 1,500 and 4,200 yen (excluding tax). You can also purchase the print in a case.
The idea is that anyone can make their own, one and only stamp, and for tourists it will serve as an unusual souvenir or a wonderful reminder of the trip.
