Christmas in Japan―まさに・・あまりにも「日本的」！And My surprise present to our post-office!

英語面白物語－１７７９：１２－２５－’1７

（Amusing English Story)

Christmas in Japan―まさに・・あまりにも「日本的」！

Let’s see what the Wikipeida people describes about the way the Japanese people spend the Cristmas day, which is the Western religious ritualistic festival and it is not something like a good number of the Japanese people celebrate with frenzy dancing and heavy drinking parties.

The first time I celebrated the day of Christmas was the first Christmas the American missionary family for which I worked. In the morning of the Christmas day, had and all families got up early in that morning and dashed to the mountain of the presents put around the tree! So, I mimiced and crimbed up, too. I found my gift wrapping and opened it. Guess what I found. It was a very small package, much smaller than those packages the children got. I was a little worried. But, I screamed for joy when I saw the thing inside the package.

“Waaah! Really?……Oh, thank you, thank you very much!”

That was a wriste watch, which only my father had in our family. The watch was excrusiatingly expensive at that time in Japan and definitely, that was something a perpson under the legal adult age shouldn’t have, at least by then custom.

And, you know what? The watch after 50 years is still ticking on my wrist！It was made by the Seikosha(精工舎), a Japanese clock maker. At that time, well, about 50 years ago, right? the Japan-made watch was trash. It was like a toy and more than often broke down and stopped. Then, in Japan, the Swiss-made watch and lesser extent, Timex of the U. S. over-whelmed the market. Waltham was out of sight prise-wise at that time in Japan.

With this fantastic memory of mine, let’s see how the people spend the Christmas day in Japan, today. I’ll quote the Wikipedia.

“Santa Claus may have European roots, but he delivers to good Japanese children too. The tradition of giving presents to kids is just one aspect of Christmas that has caught on in Japan, though. The country observes many Christmas customs, which often differ from those common to most countries that celebrate the holiday.

Christmas Eve, for example, has become more important than Christmas Day in Japan. The love song “Kurisumasu ibu” (Christmas Eve) by Yamashita Tatsurō has regularly appeared on December music charts for around three decades and is now inextricably linked with the season. On December 24, the television schedules are full of Christmas programming, from films to variety shows, and there are all kinds of special events at theme parks like Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan.

Although Christmas creates a lot of excitement, there are only around 1.9 million Christians in Japan, representing a little over 1% of the total population. Most people enjoy it as a largely secular festival.

The high-end food store Meijiya’s display of a Christmas tree in its store in Tokyo’s fashionable Ginza district in 1904 is commonly viewed as the genesis of regular seasonal celebrations in Japan. Today many families put up and decorate their own trees, usually artificial. Stores fill with Christmas goods well more than a month in advance, once Halloween celebrations are over. Christmas lights brightening up streets are a common sight at this time of year, too.

Decorating a Christmas tree.

Christmas Eve a Time for Romance

In many countries, Christmas is a time to spend with the family, but in Japan the holiday is associated with organized events. It is an especially important date night for singles, although friends may also meet up. Christmas Eve is considered to be particularly romantic, and couples exchange gifts on a day many regard as just as important as their anniversaries and birthdays. As retailers make their Christmas push, restaurants prepare seasonal menus and top hotels plan expensive dinner shows featuring performances by famous artists. Needless to say, hotels and traditional ryokan inns are packed on Christmas Eve.”

Christmas lights in Tokyo.

So, that’s what the Japan Christmas is like. It is viewed as one of the Western festivals and might well enjoy it, I guess. What? What’s my plan? I’ll go to my usual sushi restaurant and meet my friends and drink hot sake wine all night, I guess.

WATCH

My surprise present to our post-office!

Oh, yeah, I already finished writing all of my duty, Xmas and New Year Day greeting cards to all of my friends, nice or not. The nearby post office accepts these special cards now and they customarily deliver them to recepients on the Day of New Year, which we call “Gantan or 元旦.” Yes, one more day closer to the grave.

Well, what I called “A surprise present to the postoffice” is that the office retured a card to me. The memo attached says, “Sorry, this is not deliverable because there is no address and no name written on the card.” Wa, ha, ha, ha and ha!

I missed writing the front of one card! Ha, ha! Still worse, I don’t know which friend I omitted, not intentionally, honest, writing the name and address. So, what I do is just wait until the morning of the New Year Day and check all of the cards I receive. I go over the list of senders and probably I can tell which one I missed. But, I am not really sure about this. Buddha nor Emma wouldn’t be able to help me with this.

Have a nice day, Mr. or Mrs. or Ms. that I missed. Sorry.

Author of this blog: M. James. Maeda of 「浦嶋ビジネス英会話インターネット道場」http//urashimamaeda.wordpress.com