Life – the business card dilemma

When foreign business people come for the first time to China the most basic information they get is about the number of business cards they should take. I always ask how many they need and then the multiply it with twenty or thirty, depending on whether their nation is known for being tightfisted or not. They always end up having to few business cards anyway.
Last night at a meeting at the Dutch embassy in Brussels I was confronted with the flipside of that dilemma. With a hundred business cards burning in my pocket, I thought in this way very little could go wrong.
Things turned out very differently. I was able to hand out a dozen of my business cards, but almost felt like I was dealing drugs. Not of the other participants, apart from an advisor of the European Commission – yes, that is an honorable job in Brussels – nobody returned any. Even the Dutch diplomats present said they had forgotten theirs, but I felt that was only an excuse. They just do not use them. Fortunately, I brought a pen, so I could write down some key information, but it felt really awkward: using a pen.
So, I met several really interesting people, but will never be able to recall their basic information. My information gathering system is based on those bloody business cards. I hate them when I have to go through hundreds of them to find a person I met before, but without those sheets of paper, even that is not possible.
Not yet sure what do to. After a decade of China, I have given up the ambition of change a continent. But not having business cards is such a nuisance.