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26 November, 2001
KURISUMASU
MEMORIES
Americans are starting the commercial frenzy of the holiday season earlier and earlier every year. It used to be that the Christmas season was kicked off the Friday after Thanksgiving, the biggest shopping day in the US. But this year I saw fake pine trees and green and red decorations right after Halloween, when the leaves were still hanging on to the trees.
| I don't even think we hung blinking bright lights outside our house. That would have been… too un-Japanese. |
My earliest memories of this season are of squirming on the knobby knees of a Santa Claus in a big drafty room, wondering if the guy's beard was phony but not minding if it was. I remember the sound was booming when he laughed his "Ho! Ho! Ho!" and it echoed against the shiny institutional walls, hanging over the din of hundreds of other kids just like me, dressed up and standing in line to meet the Jolly One and share our wishes for Christmas presents. There was punch, there was cake, and there were also presents handed to us during these parties, which we were not allowed to open until Christmas morning.
It could have been a scene out of the film "A Christmas Story," the hilarious cinematic adaptation of Jean Shepherd's nostalgic book about what Christmas in the US was like through the eyes of a kid in the 1940s.
Except, my childhood Christmas memories took place in US Army bases in Tokyo, and many of the parents milling around holding their children's hands were in full dress uniform. These meet-and-greets with our parents and Santa are my main memories of the season growing up. Since we didn't live in the States, we didn't watch the Macy's Thanksgiving parade that kicked off the season, we didn't go shopping at the department store sales (there were no such things as shopping malls in late 1950s Japan), and we didn't do the sleigh rides and tree-cutting that are such a part of the image of Christmas in America. Oddly enough, I have only vague memories of Christmas decorations at home - we lived off-base after I was a couple of years old, and I don't even think we hung blinking bright lights outside our house. That would have been… too un-Japanese.
Not anymore, though.
People complain about the commercialization of Christmas in the US, and how far it's gotten from its religious roots. In Japan, where Christianity is very much a minority religion (less than one percent of the population is Christian, according to Christmas historian Bill Egan), there is no official designated holiday, but Christmas has become a popular celebration without its Christian trappings.
It's not unusual now for Japanese to mark Christmas (or "Kurisumasu," as it is pronounced in Japan) with Christmas trees in the home, and shopping for Christmas gifts has become a part of Japanese society. Still, there are twists, not surprisingly, in the cultural transfer of the holiday.
A traditional Japanese god, Hoteiosho, is the one who brings gifts to children, although Santa's image is everywhere. In a masterful marketing move by the US-based company, fried chicken from KFC has become the most popular "traditional" Christmas dinner since the 1980s. And, Christmas in Japan is less a family celebration, and more of a romantic holiday for couples, with special overnight hotel rates and getaway packages.
In the early 1990s, an urban legend was rampant about Christmas in Japan: The variations of the story took place any time from the immediate post-war years to the late '80s, and they were all about how a Japanese department store misunderstood the point of Christmas, and in an attempt to celebrate the season illustrated the holiday with an image of Santa Claus crucified on a cross. The story was pervasive, and was passed along (with changes in the details) in publications as reliable as the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post and Economist. But it was a hoax, and no proof of such a cultural faux pas was ever presented. Most likely it was a side-effect of flaring antagonism in the US following Japan's 1980s' rise to economic power.
One unfortunate holiday anecdote is true - one Japanese broadcaster aired the World War II prisoner-of-war film "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" as a Christmas special. Of course, the film has nothing to do with warm holiday cheer.
St. Francis Xavier, a Jesuit missionary, brought Christianity to Japan in 1549, but for centuries Christmas was celebrated only in churches and missionary schools. Christianity was completely outlawed in Japan after a religious uprising in 1639, and practiced in secret until 1854, when the country was opened up to the rest of the world by the US. Japanese families began exchanging Christmas gifts early in the 20th century, and Japanese stores began offering Christmas sales in the 1930s. But the American occupation of Japan in 1945 slowly established the holiday. My childhood, spent in the wake of the Occupation, came at a point when Christmas was still not quite mainstream. There were no KFCs in Tokyo when I was growing up.
The Japanese have always been open to Western ideas, although they adapt them in sometimes puzzling, other times savvy ways. Christmas isn't the only holiday that has evolved as a Japanese event.
The Mary Chocolate Co. invented Japan's version of Valentine's Day in 1958, as a day for girls to give gifts to guys (with chocolate as the natural present). This led to the creation of "White Day" in March, when boys are supposed to buy white presents (such as handkerchiefs or panties) for the girls.
Not all such transfers of Western holidays have been successful. One department store once tried turning St. Patrick's Day into "Green Day," with sales on all things green and Irish, and the idea flopped. The Japan Biscuit Association touted Halloween as an occasion that Americans celebrate by eating cookies, and it failed. But Halloween caught on anyway, with kids now making the rounds trick-or-treating, and friends giving each other orange candy and cakes.
New Year's is the biggest holiday in Japan, and it predates Western influences. It's a typical Asian celebration of family and a time to mark a clean slate and start a new year fresh (cleaning your house thoroughly is one ritual of Japanese New Year). But there has been one concession to Western culture since the Meiji Restoration of the mid-1800s, when Japan first became "westernized": Instead of occurring on the lunar calendar dates still honored by Chinese New Year, Japan's New Year celebration comes on January 1 - the start of Roman calendar year.
Such is the give and take of culture between Japan and the rest of the world. Here's to a happy and safe shopping season for us all.