To San or Not to San in Japan

Background

Everybody knows about the Japanese “san”, which you attach when communicating with Japanese colleagues. So, when you also refer to non-Japanese colleagues in the same email, do you then also use ~san? If not, do you think they read the email as ‘he does not respect us equally’? Just asking to point out one of the small oddities about this piece of etiquette.

For those who do not know me, I am a German living in Japan, speaking to some level English and Japanese.

Last modified on 2020-10-06