In Japan, fax machines remain important because of language and culture

In most places, computers — and by extension, e-mail — quickly made the fax machine unnecessary. But in Japan, that transition has not happened.

One reason is that computers, at the outset, never worked well for the Japanese. The country’s language — a mix of three syllabaries, with thousands of complex “kanji” ideograms — bedeviled early-age word-processing software. Until the early 1990s, Japanese was nearly impossible to type. Even today, particularly for older Japanese people, it’s easier to write a letter by hand than with a standard keyboard. Japan also relies on seals, called “hanko,” that are required for most official documents.

While the typing difficulties also apply to China, the country never got stuck in the fax stage, tech experts say.

Another factor in Japan: The government’s long-standing monopoly on phone lines kept high-speed digital Internet rates relatively high — particularly compared with South Korea, where the government promoted cheap broadband use.

Largely because of these hurdles, the Japanese developed a preference for surfing the Web on their mobile phones .

“A lot of homes just are not connected to the Internet,” said Andrew Horvat, a communications expert and the director of the Stanford overseas study program in Kyoto. “They all have phones, however, so that also makes faxing easier and cheaper than online communication.”

Even Japan, of course, is weaning itself off fax machines. Mobile giant SoftBank went “paperless” last month, both for environmental reasons and to save printing costs. Other companies say they don’t dare banish faxes — too many clients insist on them — but they would like to soon.

For now, many firms that offer services to consumers say that fax remains their preferred mode of communication. Even NHK, the national broadcaster, relies on faxes, as in a fee-based service offered to viewers of a weekly program, “Tameshite Gatten,” or “Try and Understand,” whose stories on health-related topics often feature healthful recipes.

The fax offer began in January 2011, and in that first year, 491,000 Japanese used the service, NHK spokeswoman Reiko Saisho said. Unlike with e-mail, those recipes came out warm, on standard A4 paper, and were perfect for filing away.

Special correspondent Yuki Oda contributed to this report.

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