Photo/Illutration A kindergarten child drops a nengajo New Year’s postcard into the mailbox at the Oita Central Post Office in Oita on Dec. 15. (Takayuki Kozaki)

“Sanseido Kokugo Jiten kara Kieta Kotoba Jiten” (literally, dictionary of words that have disappeared from the Sanseido Japanese Dictionary), co-edited by Yukinori Kenbo, provides a catalogue of expressions that were once included in the authoritative eponymous lexicon but later removed from revised editions.

Among them was “keitai meeru” (literally, cellphone mail), which took me by complete surprise. The passage of time is scary.

It failed to make the latest 2022 revised edition, together with “chakumero” (ringtone) and “sekigaisen tsushin” (infrared communication). These expressions must have been deemed outdated after they were rendered redundant by smartphones.

Online communication methods have undergone constant regeneration and evolution. Perhaps as a result, a 2019 national academic aptitude test found that only 57 percent of third-year junior high school students knew how to correctly address a traditional Japanese-style letter envelope.

Some students wrote the name of the addressee on the right side of the envelope, while others added an email address to the delivery address. I can only conclude that these youngsters have never had the opportunity to physically send a letter by post.

When handwriting New Year’s greeting postcards (nengajo), the sender envisages the face of each recipient. But I wonder if such a scene will eventually be considered “obsolete” and “unusual.”

About 1.4 billion New Year’s greeting cards were issued this year, reportedly only about one-third of the peak year. The total volume of postal items themselves has also shrunk by about half since then. I suppose a postage hike is unavoidable.

To confess, I stopped sending New Year’s greeting cards some years ago. My thinking then was that if I was going to send them, I wanted to add at least a little personal touch, like an illustration of the year’s Zodiac animal, to mitigate the “dryness” of the printed card. But because of my profession, there were year-end and New Year’s deadlines to keep my schedule hectic--or that, at least, was my excuse.

But being self-centered, I am now saddened to learn that more and more people are starting to do away with New Year’s greeting cards.

Come to think of it, how are my old friends doing? If I were to start writing to them now, would I still be able to make it in time?

--The Asahi Shimbun, Dec. 30

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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