Have you ever spent the first day of new year in Japan before? If not, this article will be a guide to lead you to know about the Japanese new year card, which is also called as nengajou (年賀状). This card is mainly for new year greeting to thank old friends, colleagues or clients for their help in the previous year and wish to keep a continuous friendship with them in the coming year. The new year card does not only exist in Japan, but also in other countries like Korea and China. But by comparison, China or Korea, however, as technologies become the mainstream of the modern world, only a few people are still willing to write new year cards, which reflects that Japan is the only country where you can get such an experience now.
The new year card actually originated from nara-period or narajidai (奈良時代), when people couldn’t meet each other for greeting each other in the coming new year, they sent new year cards for it instead. Since then, the new year card has been an important role on greetings for the new year until the recent 10 years. As technologies develop, more and more people choose to send emails, texts or directly give a call, implying a dramatic decrease on the amount of new year cards from 4.1 billion in 2008 to 3 billion in 2015.
Before introducing more details of new year cards, there are several rules that people should be aware of first.
Write new year cards for important people
Due to some reasons, people couldn’t meet each other for a long time. In order to keep the relationship well by writing some short sentences, with thanks or encouraging words, the person on the other side can also feel the writers sincere concerns and love.
Write brief sentences
Unlike writing letters, new year cards are a medium that conveys short, but important information. For example, writing about the silly stuff your friend has done in his childhood, or a secret between only the two of you, does help bring back the both of you to the greatest moments in your life. Also, there are loads of new year cards that have been sent and received every year, writing too much on each of them will be a nightmare then.
Choose the person to send new year cards to
As we meet different people every year, who should you give new year cards? Families, teachers, superiors, clients, colleagues, or even juniors are also the potential targets that you should consider. Whatever their occupations are, people who have helped and led you the way in your life should be in your consideration.
Write a new year card by hand
With the big number of new year cards to write within limited days, some people feel like typing on a computer and then printing them out could be much more efficient than handwriting. However, printed new year cards may make the relationship worse sometimes because the receiver can’t feel they have been concerned by reading texts. On the contrary, they will do the same thing to you in return or even worse.
PS: this also applies to the moment of a confession to the person you like in Japan. So be alert!
Differ casual new year cards from business ones
There are different types of new year cards for different targets, making it easier for people to give to the right target without any mistake. For example, it may bring the adverse effect on the relationship when you give the causal new year cards to your superiors.
Do put a Zodiac sign on new year cards
When writing a new year card, many Japanese people think that drawing some pictures on it could be better. But what should be drawn is mostly dependent on the zodiac of the year, which is called “eto“ (干支). Randomly drawing is regarded as ‘no common sense’. There are twelve zodiacs in total, and this year the zodiac turns to the dog.
Twelve Zodiacs
2018 – Zodiac of the dog
However, if the animal on the picture is a rooster, it is going to be a problem because mistaking the zodiac shows lack of knowledge and carelessness.
Now, based on the information we listed above, let’s step to making and sending new year cards.
From early December, people often go to stationary stores or post offices to pick up pre-printed new year cards. For those people who want to do something special, they also design new year cards by themselves by drawing the zodiac sign for the upcoming year with a photo of their family. Secondly, write the new year card with simple sentences for greetings and words for thanks, like what we addressed before, and do not forget to put your name and address on it. In terms of sending new year cards, Japan Post accepts cards from early December when the whole postal service decides the ultimate form of the new year card. At that moment, post boxes will be changed to have another opening for new year cards and each card will be labeled in case they will not be delivered before or after but precisely on the morning of the 1st of January. In the meantime, post offices will hire a large number of part-time workers with a considerably good hourly wage to make sure of delivering all new year cards on time. New year cards for people who passed away in the previous year are not supposed to be delivered. Instead, post offices will send a “mourning postcard” to let you know about the situation.
Be aware, sending cards is not the last step of new year cards because many new year cards are intentionally made with lottery numbers for the New Year Jumbo Lottery, with electronic appliances like TV, or even odds like 4 billion to one every year. The result is released on January 15th, so it might be your lucky year if you do have a card with a lottery number.
Words used in this article:
年賀状 ねんがじょう nengajou (new year card)
奈良時代 ならじだい narajidai (nara period)
干支 えと eto (zodiac)
