{"id":111,"date":"2005-12-16T22:20:47","date_gmt":"2005-12-16T13:20:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2005-12-16\/111"},"modified":"2005-12-16T22:21:28","modified_gmt":"2005-12-16T13:21:28","slug":"working-on-our-nengajou-japanese-new-year-cards-and-christmas-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2005-12-16\/111","title":{"rendered":"Working on our Nengajou (Japanese New-Year Cards) and Christmas Cards"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n<p>\n\nWe're finally making progress on our Christmas Cards and nengajou (Japanese\nNew Year's cards, as mentioned in <a\nhref=\"\/blog\/2005-12-09\/110\">my previous post<\/a>). Last\nweek, <span class='nobr'>I had a<\/span> horrible time trying to get them made. <span class='nobr'>We had a<\/span> <a\nhref=\"http:\/\/pic.regex.info\">few photos<\/a> from which <span class='nobr'>a nice<\/span> card might be\nconstructed, and <span class='nobr'>I spent<\/span> considerable time with some web sites on which you\ncan construct\/order cards.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nThe format for a Japanese New Year's card is pretty standard, with these items:<\/p>\n\n<ul><li><span class='nobr'>A seasonal<\/span> greeting (&#8220;Happy New Year&#8221; or the like, in English or Japanese)<\/li>\n  <li>Perhaps <span class='nobr'>a more<\/span> personal greeting (&#8220;our family expanded this year&#8221;)<\/li>\n  <li>The names of everyone in the household (with ages for the kids)<\/li>\n  <li>Your address and, if you like, other contact info (phone, email)<\/li>\n  <li>Some kind of picture or drawing (of the family, the season, or whatever)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p>Of course, there's great variety in how these are presented &mdash; the\nmessages, layouts, and such &mdash; and they can be made quite beautifully.\n\n\n<\/p>\n\n<p>\n\nAll the above is generally on one side, with the other side reserved for\npost-office stuff.\n\n<\/p><p>\n\nYou can order cards from shops all over (e.g. convenience stores, photo\nshops, etc.), and these days, online as well, so the latter is what <span class='nobr'>I\ntried.<\/span> <span class='nobr'>You generally<\/span> choose <span class='nobr'>a template,<\/span> choose from among pat phrases,\nenter your address and other info, and voila, you have <span class='nobr'>a personal<\/span> card\nready to be printed en masse and sent to you, so you can then address and\nsend to your friends. They can even come pre-stamped, if you like. <\/p>\n\n<h3>The Web Sites<\/h3>\n\n<p> The web sites I checked were very poorly constructed, with pages that\ngive details about the process, but have no link whatsoever to <b>actually\nstart the process<\/b>. <span class='nobr'>It was infuriating<\/span>. Time and again <span class='nobr'>I would<\/span> just get\nstuck and have to start over, or, if <span class='nobr'>I got<\/span> somewhere and made the mistake\nof going back, <span class='nobr'>I'd not be<\/span> able to find the page again.\n\n<\/p><p>Certainly, some of my problems could have been my lack of Japanese\nskill, but these sites were universally bad (universally worse than my\nJapanese skill). <span class='nobr'>On the fourth<\/span> site, <span class='nobr'>I finally<\/span> found one that had <span class='nobr'>a clue.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n\n<h3>Using Multiple Photos<\/h3>\n\n<p>Unfortunately, we didn't really have any good family photos. <span class='nobr'>We tend to<\/span>\ntake pictures around Anthony (and have nice shots of Mom+Anthony and\nDad+Anthony), so we needed <span class='nobr'>a site<\/span> that would let us use several photos with\nwhich to compose the card. Some sites allowed three photos to be used in <span class='nobr'>a\nfew<\/span> of their templates, but even then, the three photos combined used only\nhalf the postcard (why such <span class='nobr'>a silly<\/span> restriction?), and so the images would\nbe just too tiny.<\/p>\n\n<h3>Using One Photo<\/h3>\n\n<p>Some of the sites allow you to make postcards with one photo completely\ncovering one side. <span class='nobr'>I finally<\/span> decided to use my as-of-late not-too-bad\nPhotoshop skills to build <span class='nobr'>a card<\/span> myself, and use this printing option. So, <span class='nobr'>I took some<\/span> photos, combined them in <span class='nobr'>a way<\/span> <span class='nobr'>I thought<\/span> would look nice, added\nsome of those pat phrases, our address and names, etc. and ended up with <span class='nobr'>a\nphoto<\/span> that was ready for printing.<\/p>\n\n<p>So, <span class='nobr'>I go to<\/span> one of the sites and upload the picture, and the preview\nshows that the outer quarter inch or so has been cropped off. Sigh, <span class='nobr'>I'd spent<\/span> so much time getting things <i>just right<\/i> and here they\narbitrarily lopped it off.<\/p>\n\n<p>So, <span class='nobr'>I went to<\/span> another site and lo and behold they had explicit\ninstructions, down to the pixel, as to the size of the image to be\nsubmitted and area they will print. Finally, <span class='nobr'>a clueful<\/span> site! This site was\n<a href=\"http:\/\/onlinelab.jp\/index.html\">Konica Minolta's photo-printing\nservice<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p>I adjusted the image to the proper size, uploaded, and ordered. <span class='nobr'>I actually<\/span> prepared two &mdash; a &#8220;<a\nhref=\"\/blog\/2006-01-01\/123\">Christmas 2005<\/a>&#8221;\nversion in English, and a &#8220;<a\nhref=\"\/blog\/2006-01-01\/123\">New Year's 2006<\/a>&#8221;\nversion in Japanese. They arrived over the weekend, and <span class='nobr'>I actually<\/span> got some\nsent out today. (My experiences at the post office today are worth another\npost, to <a href=\"\/blog\/2005-12-17\/112\">appear\ntomorrow<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> We're finally making progress on our Christmas Cards and nengajou (Japanese New Year's cards, as mentioned in my previous post). Last week, I had a horrible time trying to get them made. We had a few photos from which a nice card might be constructed, and I spent considerable time with some web sites on which you can construct\/order cards. <\/p><p> The format for a Japanese New Year's card is pretty standard, with these items:<\/p> A seasonal greeting (\"Happy New Year\" or the like, in English or Japanese) Perhaps a more personal greeting (\"our family expanded this year\") The [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}