So those of you in Japan, I hope you'll comment on what your experience with this is. I never paid much attention to it or other holidays (I'm such a non-conformist), but I can appreciate it in a new way, I think, through a Japanese perspective.

I've never spent Christmas in Japan, but I can say that they send some pretty cool Christmas cards.

It's mainly for couples afaik.
likewise in korea

I find the Japanese adoption of Christmas much more fun than the Christian adoption of the Saturnalia that became Christmas. Aside from the decorations, which disappear VERY quickly after Dec 25th, its not a national holiday so no days off for it.

Calling it a couples day is pretty close to the mark. Not having a date on Christmas appears to be a sore point for a single lady here. And dinner at KFC is a good place to take a date on this day.

Ok, guess its hard to say all the nuances here. It is a fun time. No religious significance attached. New Years is another story.

I miss Christmas in Japan. I work at the airport and have to listen to that depressing "Oh, Holly Night" music for an entire month! It is no wonder there are so many suicides in December. Please hurry January so we can get back to upbeat Hawaiian music!

Christmas in Japan goes through the motions but fails to bring any sort of "christmas spirit". Strangers are still just as rude and inconsiderate to other strangers, random acts of kindness are still non-existent.

People here have no idea of what Christmas is really about; if you think Christmas has become superficial in the western hemisphere of the world, try coming here. Nothing but a few strung up lights and Exile's horrid cover of "Last Christmas" playing over and over everywhere you go.

This is a pretty awesome youtube video that fits this thread perfectly....especially if you watch any Japan youtube vloggers. http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=lmCrIZeob4w

For a lot of families with kids, Christmas Eve is time for fried chicken, Christmas cake, decorations and presents. Kids in Japan know that Santa is watching them, so they need to be good in order to get presents. For most people, Christmas isn't a religious holiday, but they may still try to get home early on Christmas Eve so as to spend time with family or significant others. On the radio, they've been reading out postcards about Christmas memories sent in by listeners. Lots of warm, fuzzy memories of childhood times & one story about a kid who refused to go to bed because she was scared of the strange old man in the white beard who was going to sneak into the house that night. One person wrote in that his/her mother always made sure to have fried chicken and cake on Christmas Eve even though family didn't celebrate Christmas or get presents from Santa. He/she realized as an adult that the family wouldn't have been able to afford presents for both Christmas and New Year's.

I stupidly went Christmas shopping on the Emperor's birthday, the 23rd, thinking that I could easily pick up some toys for a friend's kids. I have never seen lines so long. I had to give up on the toy department and get some books instead. Apparently, I was not the only one to try to take advantage of the fact that the last shopping day before Christmas Eve is also a national holiday.

activeaero's youtube link says it all. Even the school bands have a Christmas concert where they play Jingle Bells, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and the song I absolutely hate because I've heard it non-stop for the past 4 years around Christmas time in Japan, Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You".

Bands, department stores, hardware stores, everywhere. That song is evil

I've spend this Christmas in Japan, but it doesn't feel like Christmas at all to me. Well mainly because I have to work every single day, even on Sundays, so I'm just tired. I think they have quite a lot of Christmas decoration in the shopping streets. When you enter shops they play English/American Christmas songs. And they sell special Christmas cakes which Japanese people eat on Christmas. Other than that nothing special.
Today was officially Christmas in Japan, but I had classes until just now (10pm!) with junior high and high school students.

It's really odd. They put up decorations, eat Christmas cake (WTF?) and chicken.

Indeed, it's a "holiday" for couples.

Tobberoth Wrote:It's really odd. They put up decorations, eat Christmas cake (WTF?) and chicken.

Indeed, it's a "holiday" for couples.

And potato chips. Yes, when I went to have dinner with a few Japanese friends they asked me to buy some potato chips. Low and behold, there actually were special "holiday potato chips" in 7-11.

I just had a really nice eikaiwa tonight. I told them that if I was going to have eikaiwa on Christmas we were going to have a party. So we all brought food. Of course, I procrastinated, but managed to finish my food in time. I grabbed tons of decorations and it was fantastic. We all helped to put up decorations and set out food and trim the tree. It was so nice. And this one guy, a former English teacher who comes to keep up his speaking practice and who last week asked me to talk about what people really do for Christmas, he turned to me and said, "I've never experienced Christmas like this. I've never had anything like this." It made me feel really good. We all wore Santa hats or reindeer antlers and shared our food and talked and just had a merry old time. And one student had her husband, a professional photographer, come and take our picture as a class. It was really nice.

That being said, it's not the norm. For younger people it is definitely a couples holiday, resembling valentine's in that, as someone mentioned, if you are a single girl, you feel more alone. For families with young children, it's a holiday for family time, though not on the scale of other more Christian countries. Parents try to have a special dinner (fried chicken, Christmas cake) and presents are given (usually just one per child and maybe some other small things). This might all be done on Christmas Eve with nothing really happening on Christmas day. That's my impression.

Merry Christmas all!

The article about KFC is interesting. One thing they don't mention that may be relevant is that Japanese kitchens generally don't have ovens. So what's the closest thing to roast turkey you're likely to get in a place with no ovens and no turkeys?

KristinHolly Wrote:The article about KFC is interesting. One thing they don't mention that may be relevant is that Japanese kitchens generally don't have ovens. So what's the closest thing to roast turkey you're likely to get in a place with no ovens and no turkeys?

No oven!? WTF?

How do they bake food then?

So, it's the 26th and christmas is but a distant memory in Japan now... no more christmas jingles in the stores, no more christmas lights, no more gingerbread latte at Starbucks...

Seriously? They take it down that fast?

Do they have any sort of Black Friday type day in Japan?

I'm only thinking about it cause for some reason it's Black Friday II today...

kazelee Wrote:

KristinHolly Wrote:The article about KFC is interesting. One thing they don't mention that may be relevant is that Japanese kitchens generally don't have ovens. So what's the closest thing to roast turkey you're likely to get in a place with no ovens and no turkeys?

No oven!? WTF?

How do they bake food then?

Most microwaves have a heating coil, so your microwave oven doubles as an actual oven (and in my and many other cases, triples as a toaster).

So yes, you can bake things, they just have to be relatively small dishes. While it seems to be the norm to have a combo microwave/oven, I've come across a few families that have actual ovens. It's just not as widespread as in the US.

samesong Wrote:Christmas in Japan goes through the motions but fails to bring any sort of "christmas spirit". Strangers are still just as rude and inconsiderate to other strangers, random acts of kindness are still non-existent.

People here have no idea of what Christmas is really about; if you think Christmas has become superficial in the western hemisphere of the world, try coming here. Nothing but a few strung up lights and Exile's horrid cover of "Last Christmas" playing over and over everywhere you go.

I completely agree with you. Thanks for saving me from typing all of that out. Whenever people lament about how superficial Christmas has become in the US, I just bring up how much amazingly worse it is in Japan.

spoonsman Wrote:...

Totally off topic, spoonsman, but just wanted to say, I find your site very cool.

nest0r Wrote:

spoonsman Wrote:...

Totally off topic, spoonsman, but just wanted to say, I find your site very cool.

Oh, thanks.

Also thanks for making me realize that for some reason it's offline at the moment. Gah.

spoonsman Wrote:I completely agree with you. Thanks for saving me from typing all of that out. Whenever people lament about how superficial Christmas has become in the US, I just bring up how much amazingly worse it is in Japan.

I'm not sure why you guys seem to be displeased at people not getting the "meaning" of Christmas like it is some travesty if they don't respect one particular faith's interpretation of what the event should mean.

Christmas is not even Christian in origin. Since nearly the beginning of society, long before Christianity, people have celebrated winter solstice festivals. Christianity then came along and decided to piggy back one of it's stories to the event just like every other religion has ever done so in reality the Christian tradition of Christmas is just as superficial as any other. It's playing off a already known holiday in order to help sell a product.....which in this case would be the Christian doctrine. In fact Christianity NEEDS Christmas to remain commercialized. If it wasn't for Christmas commercialism the celebration of Jesus's birth would be even more forgetful of a religious event than Easter, which oddly enough should actually be the big event for Christians. Christmas allows Christians to get out there with the sales pitch of "Hey kids look at all this great stuff, presents, cool lights, parties, etc......now you know if Jesus hadn't been born there wouldn't be any of this so you better love and respect him, etc."

IMO trying to sell a religion under such circumstances is far more disturbing than people enjoying a little blind commercialism.

"Christmas Spirit" doesn't really have to come from religion. The idea of the day is to give. That's the thing most people forget.

I always enjoyed Christmas in Japan. It was a no-nonsense commercial holiday, like red and white days. There is nothing wrong with this: it smoothes out the psychological wrinkles. There was no orgy of spending: gift-buyers bought one gift for a special person and that was usually it, as far as I could tell.

In the States, God help us, there is nothing but anger, frustration, and consumerist angst from Nov.1 to Dec. 31. I spent four years in Japan and never had a depressing moment.

It is especially nice to see the Japanese roll up the decorations and put them away ASAP so that they can prepare for the really important holiday, New Year's Day. They spend New Year's Eve with family and maybe visit a temple. Wonderful!

Most things in life are easier and more tolerable if you don't assume you MUST have riotous fun and spend heaps of money to get through them.

I'm with PParisi; Christmas in Japan sucks, but not nearly as bad as it does in the West. The only annoyance is Christmas music & decorations in shopping areas. But it's only in the shopping areas, and only lasts about a month or so. None of this 2-3 months of being forced to show your allegiance to the god of Christmas. No radio stations competing to see who can change to 24/7 Christmas music earliest. No picketting and Church boycots of businesses that don't make it sufficently clear that they're *only* celebrating the birth of Jesus, and anyone who just wants to remain neutral can go ***** themselves. No forced gatherings of relatives who hate each other, no multi-day jugglings of different branches of the family, trying to make sure none is shown more favouratism than the others. No being treated like a psychotic potential serial killer if you just want to spend most of December as usual, like a normal, sane person. No co-workers taking it on themselves to act as the office Christmas Flair police. No neighbours competing to see who can buy the most expensive, pointless crap for their families. Noone intentionally picking out explicitly Christian cards to send to people known to be non-Christian, or wishing them "Merry CHRISTMAS" with a raised eyebrow, as if they should feel guilty for having the nerve to exist in winter. No "news" channel schedules like: "Next: Christmas under attack! Then, stay tuned for a special report on the War on Christmas. Then, at 7:00: What do liberals hate more: Christmas, or freedom? We'll hear from both sides of the debate!" No family murder-suicides because the father lost his job on December 1st, or little Bobby's girlfriend broke up with him on Christmas eve, or Mom went nuts because the turkey was too dry.
All in all, I can live with it.

Oh, and they don't eat Christmas cake on Christmas in Japan. They eat regular, everyday cake on Christmas and call it "Christmas cake" because that's the day they're eating it on. Few Japanese know that that's not what "Christmas cake" means in the West. Actually, I don't mind Christmas cake, but I'm sure for many people it's a strike against Western Christmas.

snallygaster Wrote:"Merry CHRISTMAS" with a raised eyebrow, as if they should feel guilty for having the nerve to exist in winter. No "news" channel schedules like: "Next: Christmas under attack! Then, stay tuned for a special report on the War on Christmas. Then, at 7:00: What do liberals hate more: Christmas, or freedom? We'll hear from both sides of the debate!"

Sounds like a Fox News headline.

You really seem to hate Christmas, though. It's not Christmas's fault. Christmas is a day on a calendar. Everything else is done by man. If it wasn't Christmas, it'd be another day.