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Japanese New Year: Cards
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New Year's day is a quiet day, with most adults staying at home, watching T.V. or writing New Year's cards. Children receive monetary presents on New Year's day so young children often visit the local toy or candy stores which are open in anticipation of this. The children are given money in special small envelopes. Amounts are carefully noted by the parents, who have to keep track of the obligation toward the giver.
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All expressions basically mean, "Happy New Year". You can choose any of them to begin your card. "Kinga Shinnen (謹賀新年）," "Kyouga Shinnen (恭賀新年）," "Gashou (賀正）," and "Geishun (迎春）" are seasonal words not used in regular conversation. The rest of the three expressions can be used as a greeting. Click here to hear the sound files for New Year's greetings.
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Traditional New Year's play tended to break down according to age and gender. Boys typically flew kites, while girls played with battledores and shuttlecocks (hanetsuki), though there was surely some overlap between the two. Adults, with children, sometimes played games with poetry, such as shell-matching with 36 poems or capping verses from the 100 poets (hyakunin isshu) with playing cards.
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Housewife is usually the person who picks up the task of writing from 20 to several hundred new year cards, nenga-jo. Nenga-jo is similar to the Christmas card tradition in the west.
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The cards are delivered on New Year's day by the Postal Service, which employs students part-time to help distribute the huge volume of cards which come in each year. When you consider that each Japanese person sends anywhere from 20 to several hundred cards, the need for the added assistance in delivering the cards becomes apparent.
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There are ... a few games traditionally played on New Year, however, their popularity has decreased in recent times. Hanetsuki (Japanese badminton), takoage (kite flying), and karuta (a card game) are some of them.
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