Chikyu Greetings - Uchiwa Fan Card - Girl with Paper Balloon Design

Chikyu Greetings - Uchiwa Fan Card - Girl with Paper Balloon Design

A Japanese greeting card shaped like an uchiwa, the traditional flat Japanese fan, published by Chikyu Greetings. Unlike the folding sensu, the uchiwa is rigid and made in a single piece, and for centuries it has been one of the objects that best embodies the Japanese summer: it appears at summer festivals, at food stalls, on fireworks nights and in the hands of anyone strolling in a yukata.

This uchiwa fan card takes that tradition and turns it into something you can send by post. Japan has a custom known as shochū mimai (暑中見舞い): a letter sent during the hottest weeks of the year — roughly from the end of the rainy season to the beginning of August — to ask after the recipient's health and wish them well through the heat. A fan-shaped card is, quite literally, sending a little coolness inside an envelope.

The motif belongs to the warabe (童) series, devoted to children's figures, one of the best-loved themes in Japanese stationery. The illustration shows a girl in a long-sleeved kimono patterned in warm tones, her hair cut in the okappa style, playing with a paper balloon of red, blue and yellow segments floating in the air. This is the kamifūsen (紙風船), a traditional Japanese toy made of coloured paper strips glued together: you inflate it through a small hole and keep it aloft by tapping it with your palm. It was a fixture of festival stalls and neighbourhood sweet shops, and it still carries a nostalgic childhood air that fits the spirit of the series perfectly.

The finish is where this piece stands out: the card is embossed on both faces to reproduce the ribs of the fan, so that by touch and against the light the framework of a real uchiwa appears. The fine patterns of the kimono are printed in gold, and that same gold is echoed in the trim that runs around the whole edge, giving it an unmistakable gift-piece quality. The reverse is left free for you to write your message by hand.

It comes with a matching standard envelope in very pale green. Card and envelope together weigh between 20 and 22 grams, within standard letter format, so it can be posted without difficulty. If you enclose anything else, check the weight first.

Ideal as a greeting card, as a small extra to accompany a gift, or simply stood upright on a shelf as a small Japanese decoration.

About Chikyu Greetings. Chikyu Greetings, based in Asakusabashi (Tokyo), is a Japanese stationery publisher whose "Chikyu" brand goes back to the Meiji era, around 130 years ago. It specialises in greeting cards and paper goods — envelopes, letter paper, pochibukuro, stickers and Japanese-style bookmarks — with a style the company itself describes as basic, warm designs with a touch of whimsy.