My first Christmas living in Japan
December 2018 marked my first Christmas in Japan and it was especially interesting for me as I couldn’t imagine how it would compare to Christmas in the UK. I had read about the modern-day tradition of eating fried chicken on Christmas day but little else. Were all the shops going to be open? Would there be Christmas lights and trees everywhere? Let’s find out….
Firstly, it’s important to acknowledge that Christmas Day is not a national holiday in Japan. Transportation runs the same as any other day and all of the shops remain open which is in stark contrast to the UK where almost every store is closed.
While December 25this a normal working day in Japan, December 23rd up until this year has been a national holiday given to the public in celebration of the Emperor’s birthday. The Emperor is stepping down next year which means that going forward this national holiday will fall upon a different day.
During December you will find Christmas trees and Santa Claus’s everywhere throughout Japan. Santa Claus is affectionately referred to as “Santa-san” in Japan. This was strange to hear at first, but I now I like the sound of it. You will also notice Christmas lights everywhere in Japan and many prefectures also had parks and gardens transformed into very impressive illumination displays.
On December 23rdI was in Matsushima which is best known for the 200+ small islands that surround its bay, however I have a feeling that I’m going to remember it more for the people that I saw dressed as Santa Claus canoeing around these islands then towards the bay.
During my stay in Matsushima, I also travelled down to Sendai where the trees down the streets were covered endlessly in Christmas lights. There were also many Santa Claus’s with rickshaws taking people around town. The Santa Claus’s would even wave at their adoring public whenever they got held up at the traffic lights.
Becoming Santa-san
This year, I had the opportunity to dress up as Santa Claus for the locals as part of a UK themed Christmas party. The party also included the western tradition of Secret Santa and it was one of my responsibilities as “Santa-san” to present the guests with their gifts. The names of the recipients were written on the gifts using the English alphabet thankfully as I wouldn’t have been able to read out the names if they were written in kanji.
After handing each guest their gift, they each got to take a picture with Santa-san which was also printed out and given back to them with a Christmas card on the same night at the party! How’s this for Japanese efficiency?
Christmas at school
Each of the schools that I work at had a Christmas themed lesson planned for this year. I had a feeling that there would be an expectation for me to talk about what Christmas is like in the UK, so I prepared a picture filled PowerPoint presentation ahead of time. Luckily, I was right, and I had the presentation ready. The only problem was that I forgot to bring it with me to one of my classes.
The inevitable moment came, I walked into this one class without the presentation and the teacher said to me “England, Christmas, speech, ok?” and there I was left to talk to about thirty 10-11-year olds about Christmas with no pictures and limited Japanese. All things considered it actually went rather well. The highlight was me acting out Santa drinking milk and eating cookies, but I don’t think I’m going to be winning any awards for my performance.
In the lessons for the younger students, I taught them Christmas words such as Christmas tree, presents, reindeer and the most difficult one – Christmas crackers. You can find pretty much any type of Christmas novelty in Japan but what you won’t find here are Christmas crackers. After noticing the confusion on the classes face when I showed them a picture of Christmas crackers, I came up with quite a unique method to help explain what it was.
In each class I took a clean tissue from the tissue box that you will find at the front of every classroom and give one end to a student to hold and I would hold the other end. We would then both pull the tissue until it ripped, and I would yell “BANG” and declare the student the winner and say they got a small present. If nothing else the students found this entertaining!
As Christmas draws to a close for another year, I am happy to report it will definitely be one of the most memorable for me. While I miss my family and friends back in the UK, I am glad that I decided to spend the lead up to Christmas here in Fukushima as it had brought me closure to everyone that I have gotten to know over the last few months. I know what you are all probably thinking about now, did he eat fried chicken on Christmas Day? Of course I did! It would have been rude not to right?