page_title: Japanese New Year
section_title: Postcards
hierarchical_section_title: Japanese New Year / Postcards
caption_attribution_description: 日本語: 日本の年賀状の一例。 蛇の絵の著作権はindividual locker が所有。著作物の改変などの許可はこのページにあり。 字体は完全なるフリーフォントである、青柳衡山・疎石フォントを使用。
context_page_description: The Japanese New Year is an annual festival with its own customs. Since 1873, the official Japanese New Year has been celebrated according to the Gregorian calendar, on January 1 of each year, New Year's Day. However, some traditional events of the Japanese New Year are partially celebrated on the first day of the year on the modern Tenpō calendar, the last official lunisolar calendar which was used until 1872 in Japan.
context_section_description: The end of December and the beginning of January are the busiest times for the Japanese post offices. The Japanese have a custom of sending New Year's Day postcards (年賀状, nengajō) to their friends and relatives, similar to the Western custom of sending Christmas cards. Their original purpose was to give your faraway friends and relatives tidings of yourself and your immediate family. In other words, this custom existed for people to tell others whom they did not often meet that they were alive and well.
  Japanese people send these postcards so that they arrive on 1 January. The post office guarantees to deliver the greeting postcards on 1 January if they are posted within a time limit, from mid-December to near the end of the month and are marked with the word nengajō. To deliver these cards on time, the post office usually hires students part-time to help deliver the letters.
  It is customary not to send these postcards when one has had a death in the family during the year. In this case, a family member sends a simple mourning postcard (喪中葉書, mochū hagaki) to inform friends and relatives they should not send New Year's cards, out of respect for the deceased.
  People get their nengajō from many sources. Stationers sell preprinted cards. Most of these have the Chinese zodiac sign of the New Year as their design, or conventional greetings, or both. The Chinese zodiac has a cycle of 12 years. Each year is represented by an animal. The animals are, in order: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog, and Pig. 2008 was the year of the Rat, 2009 Ox, 2010 Tiger, 2011 Rabbit, 2012 Dragon, and 2013 Snake. 2020 will be Rat again. Famous characters like Snoopy, (2006) and other cartoon characters like Mickey and Minnie Mouse, (2008) have been especially popular in their celebrated years.
  Addressing is generally done by hand, and is an opportunity to demonstrate one's handwriting (see shodō). The postcards may have spaces for the sender to write a personal message. Blank cards are available, so people can hand-write or draw their own. Rubber stamps with conventional messages and with the annual animal are on sale at department stores and other outlets, and many people buy ink brushes for personal greetings. Special printing devices are popular, especially among people who practice crafts. Software also lets artists create their own designs and output them using their computer's color printer. Because a gregarious individual might have hundreds to write, print shops offer a wide variety of sample postcards with short messages so that the sender has only to write addresses. Even with the rise in popularity of email, the nengajō remains very popular in Japan, although the younger generation hardly send any cards, preferring to exchange digital greetings using their mobile phones. In recent years this digital greeting preference is gradually accepted among the society.
  Conventional greetings include:
  kotoshi mo yoroshiku o-negai-shimasu (今年もよろしくお願いします, 'I hope for your favour again in the coming year')
  (shinnen) akemashite o-medetō-gozaimasu ((新年)あけましておめでとうございます, 'Happiness to you on the dawn [of a New Year]')
  kinga shinnen (謹賀新年, 'Happy New Year')
  gashō (賀正, to celebrate January)
  shoshun/hatsuharu (初春, 'early spring'; in the traditional lunar calendar a year begins in early spring)
  geishun (迎春, to welcome spring)
caption: nengajō, new year cards in Japan
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