In Japan, if you are a working adult, you give money to your kids or younger relatives.
You better be glad you are not Japanese :p
I have three cousins. Two of them have three kids, one has two. So i have 8 kids to give money to. You cannot give the same amount to 15year old kid and 3 year old.
So you give ￥5000(about USD45) to the olderst one, and ￥4000 to his brother, ￥3000 to his sister, and so on......
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
but for the kids, this is THE day for them, they count money the collected and think of what they can buy with it :)
You can tell which kids are smarter than others by observing how them spend money. Some will save it all and some will spend it on silly toys. Some parents tell the kids that they will take care of their money and put it in their bank account so that the kids won't waste money.
Anyhow, this New Years, I returned home to give away money! but at least the kids were happy :D
