Essay

You've got nengajo!

By Kit Pancoast Nagamura

As I read through this year's mountain of nengajo, or New Year's cards, I noted that the majority are now preprinted, from the image to the greeting to the addresses and occasionally even the sender's signature. Some were, in fact, difficult to distinguish from commercial junk mail. I've been watching this trend build over the years with particular interest.

During my first year in Tokyo, I struggled to learn how to write in Japanese. With encouragement from teachers and friends, I developed a modicum of confidence in my brushwork. I even sent out a few of my first nengajo before going off to spend the holidays in the countryside at my friend's home that first year.

On New Year's day, I rose at dawn. My breath was visible in the frosty air. The only sounds were those of birds outside and the steady breathing of my friend, still snug in her futon. Without waking her, I set off in search of a warm spot in the house. I found my friend's father, an early-riser like me, bundled up at the kotatsu with a cup of tea. I joined him. He was thumbing rhythmically through a huge stack of New Year's cards, most covered with graceful calligraphy. He stopped suddenly, pulled one card out, and said, "Whoa, I've never seen one this ugly!" That card was, of course, mine.

We had a good laugh about it at the time, but to this day, many years later, I have a sneaking suspicion that my cards still raise eyebrows. So why persist? Why bother writing something (perhaps badly) by hand when modern mail rarely requires any kind of handwriting at all?

Computerized correspondence, such as email and text messaging, has revolutionized, simplified, and globalized the way we communicate. No one I know wants to limit daily communications to the hassles of old snail mail, or the intrusiveness of phone calls. But at the same time, mail-on-demand, which is instantaneous and boiled down to cute abbreviations (EZ, UC?), is like fast food. It's cheap and convenient, but the content often lacks sustenance, and is dished out without much consideration for how it will be digested.

The days of eloquent epistles, the kind where you'd know the author by the unique loopings of letters on the envelope, are fading. I miss the creative elements of handmade missives, from paper stock — consider the variety of statements made simply by choosing to write on washi, onion skin, legal pad, or beer coaster — to fragrances, illustrations, and stamps. The art of letter writing really was, at one time, an art, or at the very least a testament to one's individuality and devotion. Japan has been exquisitely attuned to those ideals.

I sense that computer-generated mail cannot compete with handmade correspondence, just as a cheeseburger-to-go has no business at the table with a Michelin three-star feast, but the pressures of our current world push us toward instant gratification, at whatever cost. In order to respond to all the nengajo I receive, I may have to computerize addresses, at least. A good thing? Ask me L8R.

Shukan ST: Jan. 23, 2009

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