My special New Year's Card

New Year Cards

In Japan, we have a custom to send New Year cards called “nengajyo”.
People enjoy writing cards to their friends, family and people they haven’t seen in a while. It is one way of keeping in touch and letting them know how you are.

You can buy special New Year post cards at convenience stores, department stores and post offices. You can buy ones with pictures on the front, or ones that are blank and you can draw or print them out yourself. The designs are usually the picture of an animal representing the Chinese zodiac for that year. This year was the year of the cow, and next year will be the year of the tiger. Some people like to send a picture of themselves or of their family or pets. Also, there are cards which have numbers printed on the bottom. These are for a lucky draw. The lucky draw is drawn around the 15th of January. You have a chance of winning things such as stamps, a bicycle or a television. Last year, I got the last prize which was a stamp.

When I was in elementary school, I bought about 50 post cards and wrote them all by hand. I bought ink stamps of the animal for that year and stamped it, wrote “Happy New Year” and wrote different messages for each person. I enjoyed making them so much. It was nice to receive some too. When I was a child, I used to run outside to the mailbox as soon as I got up to see if they had come or not. Waking up on the first day of the year and checking my mail box for New Year cards was so exciting!

As I got older, I learnt how to use a computer and I made cards with it. There is a special software for designing New Year cards and it is very convenient: you pick some pictures, stick it on to it and move it around. That’ all you have to do, and you can design your own lovely Nengajou. I had more friends to send cards to, so it was much easier than to write it by hand. Although, I still kept writing a short massage to each person by hand because I thought hand writing makes it more personal.

However, the ways of sending New Year cards are changing, especially for the young generation. Recently we send them by e-mail by our mobile phones, as it is more convenient and also cheaper. This year, I received more e-mails than cards. I only got five cards from my friends; one was from a doctor that I only have been to once or twice! I was a little disappointed that the mailbox was not full but my mobile’s e-mail box was full instead. On the massage, we attach some pictures like you print on your nangajou. The most surprising one I got this year was a photo of a real cow. It had a great impact and I decided that I am going to send a photo of a real tiger next year to my friends. I hope everyone will like it.

Now that I am in University and I am getting to know more people, my address book is getting bigger and bigger. Although I love to receive the traditional style New Year cards, I think I might be sending them mostly by e-mail this year too.

How about you? Are you going to send traditional style New Year’s cards? People used to discuss whether hand writing cards are better than ones you printed from the computer. Now it is whether you send it by post or by e-mail. Which do you prefer, receiving the traditional style one or by e-mail?

Japanese Fairy Tale: Urashimataro