At this time of the year, you may have received and sent any number of Christmas cards. Or, in the Japanese tradition, you might still be panicking about writing all the New Year's postcards that the nation's army of mailmen and women endeavor to deliver on New Year's Day.
Even though e-mails have taken over from "snail mail" as many people's routine way of messaging, the custom of exchanging posted seasonal greetings is a reminder of how nice it feels to receive a handwritten card or letter from a friend or family member.
Though writing by hand is believed to date back around 6,000 years, until recently it seemed that the fountain pens people used 50 years ago had themselves become part of prehistory. Not only were they largely replaced by ballpoints, in the last decade computer keyboards have increasingly become the normal way of "writing."