By the way, does anyone over there in the States know if Kentucky Fried Chicken (USA) gives away these "Christmas plates" with certain orders during the season? They do here in Japan...
If not, why not (we might want to ask them)...
Posted on 12/02/2009 5:54:36 PM PST by AmericanInTokyo
If my memory serves me correctly, the Japanese adopted the gift giving portion at Christmas time back in the 50’s. Santa was called Father Winter or something close to that. ???
Your guess is correct.
I was a controller at Tokyo Air Traffic Control Center.
We had too many guys in the squadron so we worked 1 six hour shift for four days and then 3 days off.
Tokyo here we come!
JD
Yes, I enjoyed a trip to the old Johnson Air Base a number of years ago. It is now "Iruma Kichi" or "Iruma Base" of the Air Self Defense Forces, although a lot of the old buildings are still there--at least to my knowledge.
Happy Advent and (eventually) Merry Christmas!!
It's amazing how the first amendment is cited to prohibit religious expression when it actually is meant to prevent govt. restriction of religious expression.
The islands were first blessed with this celebration of Christ's virgin birth, when the Jesuits brought it to Japan. This would have been around, say, 1552, but in fact Francis Xavier may well have brought it in around 1549. Then the mean guys took over and outlawed Christianity...everyone was either crucified or burned as martyrs, forced to renounce the Cross (literally step on it), or went underground and kept the faith. With it, Christmas. They could celebrate with the candles out and the voices low, any word of it getting out and your head would be severed by at swordsman without question nor trial.
So Christmas was underground for nearly 250 years.
When Japan opened back up in the Meiji period in the late 1800's, then the Merry Christmas custom was revived with Protestant and Catholic believers in the open port cities like Yokohama or Kobe or elsewhere. Here is where the gift giving probably really started; the Japanese watched the gaijins do it amongst themselves, and then copied it. But, outside of the major cities, nobody in Japan really knew what it was. Then, the bad guys took over again. This time, World War II. By the time Japan was fully in it with Americans, THERE WAS TO BE NO CHRISTMAS. Again, if you wanted to celebrate, you better do it in a basement somewhere far from the kempeitai and dont tell ANYONE outside of your close friends or neighbors for fear of it getting out to the neighborhood spies for the Emperor.
The bad guys were hanged, the good guys arrived all following a big, robust fellow smoking a corncob pipe with dark sunglasses, and Christmas once again made it into Japan through the US military. They brought in all the wonderful songs, masses and services, charitable acts, family times, feasts, gift giving, Santa Claus, of course, and no doubt crass commercialization crept in as well no doubt about it--just like the USA. However Christmas has gone strong and is still resistant to that strange strain of cruel, bigoted political correctness sweeping the globe. If Japan ever lets in enough Islamists to such a degree that they are a whiny, easily-offended force, well then, I would imagine eventually it would be "shitsurei" (bad manners)for the Japanese to offer that warm and loving greeting of Merry Christmas and they might just fold their cards like so many areas in public life in the United States (on public or government property, in private companies, in daily life). Let us hope that day never comes, though.
There you have it. You asked me a simple question about Christmas and gift giving here. I wrote a book in reply. Sorry for rambling. Hope that puts it in perspective.
The very purpose of this thread, the reason I wrote it two years ago, and dusted it off two years later, and updated it a bit. It is actually full of irony and sadness when you think about it. That over the erosive years such a small minority in the USA have intimidated such a vast majority and exerted control over them...and yet in Japan, such a huge majority of non-Christians and even atheists, are tolerant of and even unashamedly support and promote Christmas and respect the rights of the 0.7% super minority of Christians here.
This is also true in Singapore, which is predominantly Christian but has huge Muslim and Hindu minorities. They don’t let multiculturalism ruin their country!
I'm glad you will be spending Christmas day anywhere other than an airport. ;^)
Plus, we wish you a Happy and prosperous New Year!
5.56mm
OH MAN ROFL
Thank you. Working on the new 2009 version Tokyo scene photos, too. Hope to add before too long.
By the way, does anyone over there in the States know if Kentucky Fried Chicken (USA) gives away these "Christmas plates" with certain orders during the season? They do here in Japan...
If not, why not (we might want to ask them)...
Cool and again, thanks for these FReports. I’m hearing more people and businesses saying it this year too. Actually heard a TGIFriday’s ad saying; “Thank GOD it’s Friday”, several times and emphasizing “God”.
They don’t AIT
I know for a fact they don’t
Just got back from downtown (Oceanside, CA). Div 1 Marine Corps Band played carols and some military music for about 45 minutes then the commander of Camp Pendleton plugged in a large tree in fromnt of the Regal Theatres. Great stuff. We got to thank a lot of marines personally.
Very cool and Merry Christmas from Texas!
They are predicting snow tomorrow in Houston no less.
Hmmmmm.... i sense a little Trans-Pacific "Bring Christmas Back to America" fight that we can start, brewing.... ;-)
I wish I could share your enthusiasm. If I were Buddhist and they were pushing a Christian Merry Christmas on me, I’d be mad. Japan is a Bhuddist nation. To me, it’s like pushing Kwanzaa on our nation.
I have always had the greatest respect for Japan minus the WWII period where they were the most brutal to our soldiers. But the reason I respected them is because they stood for their culture.
I wish I could celebrate with you that they’ve taken Christmas to heart but it seems only a way to make money.
I wish I could share your enthusiasm. If I were Buddhist and they were pushing a Christian Merry Christmas on me, I’d be mad. Japan is a Bhuddist nation. To me, it’s like pushing Kwanzaa on our nation.
I have always had the greatest respect for Japan minus the WWII period where they were the most brutal to our soldiers. But the reason I respected them is because they stood for their culture.
I wish I could celebrate with you that they’ve taken Christmas to heart but it seems only a way to make money.
Merry Christmas!
hey, don’t you bring tears to my eyes by posting Christian Japanese singing about Christmas.
They are still in the minority and I still say, as an American Christian, I would be offended if our Christmas was overturned into a variety of other religious activities. Oh, wait, it already is. It’s a Bhuddist nation and they have a right to their religion and culture.
I can do Jewish holidays, I’m perfectly ok with Hannukah but nothing else in the US.
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