Children in a townhouse are having a “New Year’s gift battle”.

New Year’s Day gift-giving is a world apart from the “lower classes”!

For children, the most exciting part of the New Year’s holiday is the New Year’s gift. Many of them probably look forward to the New Year’s gift from their parents or relatives every year. However, just as there is a disparity in the financial situation of each family, there is also a disparity in how much New Year’s money is given. How about in the world of condominiums in the heart of Tokyo, where the historic condominium bubble is booming?

It is often whispered amusingly that “mounting battles” are taking place among high-income families living in towered apartments. The rivalry over vanity is said to extend to all aspects of income, children’s lessons, and even the level of the condominium. And it seems to be present even in the amount of New Year’s money that children receive.

The Kachidoki area of Chuo-ku, Tokyo, is famous for its rows of tower blocks. Famous tower blocks such as Harumi Flag are also located nearby. When we interviewed the families around the station, we found that some families gave ¥5,000 to ¥10,000, which is the standard amount for New Year’s gifts, while others gave surprising amounts.

A woman in her 40s who says she works in real estate prefaced her comment with the following words: ” We don’t have that much money compared to other families, so we give our New Year’s gift to our children in the amount of …….

We gave our children 50,000 yen. It’s a good amount, and I think elementary school students can buy whatever they want with it. When I talked to other children, I found out that those who go to private schools receive more, and when they go home to their parents, they are given about 700,000 yen.

We also heard from other Tawaman residents about the mounting battle over New Year’s gifts. A man in his 30s who works for a foreign IT company said , “I reluctantly gave more money to my son because his wife asked me to.

He said, “It seems that mothers have conversations with each other about how much money they receive. My wife seems to be concerned about it, but I don’t know what that feels like. When I was a child, I was just grateful to be given money.

My child is in the 5th grade of elementary school, so I was thinking of the grade x 1,000 yen, but she said, ‘XX-san and his wife get 10,000 yen each. My friends might make fun of me,’ so I gave them 30,000 yen. ‘ It seems that when children reach the upper grades, they start to care about their respective family situations, so I had no choice but to do it so they wouldn’t be bullied.”

Relatives get involved, too.

It seems that the mounting battle over children’s New Year’s gifts affects not only families but also their relatives. A businessman whose brother lives in a townhouse said that his brother asked him to give his nephew 100,000 yen, but there seems to be a “secret” to the story.

I have never heard of a 100,000 yen New Year’s gift. I thought it would be OK to give him at least 10,000 yen since he is my cute nephew. …… My brother and I both received 10,000 yen from our parents. I’m not sure if it’s okay to give that much, and I wonder if it’s good for the child.”

The reason for the “100,000 yen New Year’s gift” was, again, related to the mounting battle.

Apparently, they want to show that not only their parents but also their relatives are rich. It seems that rather than their parents making enough money to live in a townhouse, their parents’ siblings also have money, and they can mount a bigger sum of money from more relatives. They want to look good that they are from a family that has no shortage of money. I think they wanted to make up a story like, ‘I got 100,000 yen from my uncle too,’ even if they gave me money, but I’m just an ordinary salaryman, so I feel ridiculous.”

The New Year’s gift battle seems to be taking place at school as well. One man in his 30s who works at an office and whose sister and her family live in a townhouse complains about the amount of New Year’s gifts he receives because of this, and he is upset.

My niece is now in elementary school, so I decided to give her a New Year’s gift this year, but she told me that 3,000 yen is not enough. They said, ‘We can’t buy anything with this amount, and we might be called poor at school.

I heard that at the school my niece attends, there is a mounting battle over how much money they receive as a New Year’s gift, and if it is not enough even though they live in a townhouse, they will think they are poor. I ended up giving them 10,000 yen, but I wonder if having that much money as a child doesn’t make you lose your sense of finances.”

The mounting battles are also affecting the New Year’s money that children are receiving. With the average price of even a second-hand condominium in Tokyo’s 23 wards now exceeding 100 million yen, just the idea of living in a tower block in the heart of the city is enough to make one envious, but it sounds like it would be a lot more difficult if one tried living there.