From 0.7% Christian Japan, "MERRY CHRISTMAS" To All (It Is Said & Seen EVERYWHERE Here)

AmericanInTokyo ^ | 3 December 2009 | AmericanInTokyo

[AmericanInTokyo]

CHRISTMAS IN JAPAN can be a little lonely and isolated for the Westerner here. What with the distance from “home” and cultural differences. Little things, here and there. Missing some of the usual things from back home, especially for people like one particular 'American in Tokyo'. This year 2009 is again no different. However, in many respects I must say there is nevertheless one little thing that is so refreshing about being stuck in Japan during Christmas—after a few years—and for the occasions one cannot make it back "home".

It is almost like the clock has been refreshingly and unapologetically turned back years to a simpler and brighter, unfettered time in our own U.S.A. An era years before the phenomenon of "political correctness" and religious censorship raised its cruel, offensive and unwelcome head in the United States of America. In many of our shared pasts, when the simple words メリークリスマス！ "MERRY CHRISTMAS!" were everywhere easily to be seen, heard, offered and received during that special season at the end of each year. There was no fear. There was no hesitation. There was no political threat. There was no busload of salivating, slick lawyers in the background ready to pounce. There were no second thoughts, "gee, should I say it or just be silent?" There was no shame. There were no silly dictates from the Scrooges on High, from school boards to the White House and Pentagon lording it over the unwashed masses that we somehow become "sensitive" and are to turn our "Christmas Trees" into "Holiday Trees", or have our kids take "Winter Break" instead, or that one must wish "Happy Holidays!", or "Seasons Greetings!" or "Joyous Winter!" at the workplace or in other areas in public for fear of "offending" unnamed people with unnamed faces of unnamed percentages…

And so, from Japan this 2009, as in all years—yes-barely 1% Christian JAPAN, where with the overwhelming preponderance of adherents to Buddhism, Shintoism and even Atheism one would think a collaborative oppression would be the order of the day, it is almost nothing BUT "Merry Christmas". This is everywhere one turns. The photos tell a story and what a story indeed my friends.

In Japanese stores, in supermarkets, at bus stops, at airports, in coffee shops, in restaurants, in office lobbies, on trains and subways, in convenience stores, in tiny cafes, in huge department stores, even in elevators in major business centers. Everywhere, in Japan, one is simply overwhelmed at this wonderful, simple two-word phrase of loving greeting which has taken such a beating in overwhelmingly Christian America through the tyrannical dictates of a very few.

I will be the first to recognize that Christmas in Japan does have very strong commercialism tendencies, tinged with secularism, with the focus being on sales, sales, sales. (Indeed, is that any different than in America?) But as I pondered these points over a few weeks in 2007 I took my camera along and share with you what my eyes saw here in Japan. 2009 versions of photos will also be on their way to this thread and appropriate links, too. Nothing will have changed in two years--no moral decay, no cultural war setbacks. Not only the eyes were pleasantly pleased day in and day out making the rounds in Tokyo in December, the ears were pleased, too. I heard the faint melody of "Adeste Fideles" in a Japanese 7-Eleven near the boiling oden. I caught the end of "Joy to the World" in a tea salon as I entered. I enjoyed"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" between in front of the sashimi counter in a little local supermarket. Huge loudspeakers in a major Japanese department store equivalent to an American Macy’s or a Bloomindales cheerfully blasted "The Night, When Christ Was Born" from "O Holy Night", big, red and white 10’x 4’banners streaming down ever four feet from the ceiling heralding "Merry Christmas!" in English. People were actually smiling. I shook my amazed gaijin head at the parts of words featuring "Christ" filling such a huge, bustling department store of December shoppers and I thought how the constipated, impeccable Windsor-knotted attorneys would be readied if such a thing were happening in most places in America these days. Ironic, yet sad at the same time! I once explained the words and concept behind the new-found "Happy Holidays" in America to a Japanese friend. He just stared at me with an odd look. It took nearly 30 minutes, before he said, "Ah, but, you Americans and Europeans-first through missionaries and later through American GIs--brought such a tradition to us here in Japan in the first place. Do we really have to stop saying or displaying "Merry Christmas", too?" It took another one hour just to explain to him the overall concept and silliness of "political correctness." He got it, but he kind of did not get it. Regardless, my Japanese friend was noticeably embarrassed and sad for us.

And I told my friend, not to worry, that people in the USA for example were really starting to rise up against political correctness and the societal ban on "Merry Christmas" in a big way. He seemed satisfied and his concerns were allayed. We were both late for separate meetings. And so, of course, I wished him "Merry Christmas" as we grabbed separate, spotless Tokyo taxis.

From Japan this year as in 2007, enjoy the photos linked to Flickr and travel back in your minds to this wonderful time in our own country—that may just be around the corner for America again if people rise up in increasingly greater and bold numbers, and take back their country without fear--in supermarkets, at bus stops, at airports, in coffee shops, in restaurants, in office lobbies, on trains and subways, in convenience stores, in tiny cafes, in huge department stores, in elevators in major business centers, and yes, even in some places, in front of the sashimi counter. It might just even start with you, tomorrow morning somewhere at just the perfect time. And so to my compatriots in the United States of America and many other Western lands which celebrate the season, well…”MERRY CHRISTMAS!” from Japan!

(“AmericanInTokyo” is a 10 year+ member of the conservative American news site “FreeRepublic.com”, and spends of part of each year in Tokyo, Japan. Additional photos to be taken in December 2009 to prove the author’s point again, will be added to this thread throughout the 2009 Christmas Season and to the Flickr collection.)

[Candor7]

Not urban myth. It actually happened. Maybe his story started it all. His name is Ira, and he is a writer and now an English professor at SUNY.

Here in America we use Buddhist's shrine statues as paper weights, and shinto wands as dusters. Who knew?

Sacrilege is a very relative thing.The Japanese have a sort of pristine innocence about religion in general, and few talk much about it , as you know.So putting the wrong figure on a cross is not that far out. It has probably happened more than once.

I sort of like the story.When cultures mix, funny things can happen, and one has to have a sense of humor about those situations.

[Nachoman]

My experience with the Japanese is that they are courteous and polite to a fault; unless you’re at war with them. Then their manners go right out the window.

[SnuffaBolshevik]

Thanks, AIT.

I always enjoy your posts, but this one is the best.

Merry Christmas!

[SilvieWaldorfMD]

I totally enjoy your posts from Japan, especially during Christmastime...

[Clemenza]

Better than 90% Christian Spain, where you increasingly see “Feliz Fiestas” in the town plazas.

[Nervous Tick]

I will never forget the Christmas display I encountered in one of the stores in the Shin-Yokohama train station mall. A beautiful Christmas tree, and a speaker playing electronic-timbre Christmas carols at as loud a volume as they could get away with and not violate Japanese decorum.

I didn’t expect it, and it made me a little homesick, even though I was only over there for about a week.

The mall display was one of those schmaltzy commercial things; OTOH, 5 out of 7 of the upper management of our Japanese subsidiary were Christians — guess they were part of that 0.7%.

I love Japan. Used to go there quite often. Thanks for the post.

FRegards

[Question_Assumptions]

While it’s true that there are a lot of Christmas decorations in Japan this time of year, most of it lacks any religious connection (no Nativity scenes that I can remember) and that left it feeling a little hollow and soulless for me when I lived there. On the other hand, Colonel Sanders at KFC does look pretty good decked out for Christmas.

[MacMattico]

I was in China (Fujian Province and Guanghou) in March 2002 and they still hadn't taken all of their Christmas decorations down yet!

[SevenofNine]

Japan? of all places?

OH MAN that soo coollll AIT

[netmilsmom]

Thank you so much for sharing this!!!!

I want to be where they say “Merry Christmas” order some Pizza-La and go to the Ghibli Museum.

Want to switch with me this year?
My in-laws aren’t THAT bad (she says snickering while turning away)

[AGreatPer]

"Mostly it is eating a lot around the home"

What are the traditional foods eaten around the holidays?
I actually saw on tv live fish in a tank being sold in one of their WalMarts.

[gogogodzilla]

Don’t forget the traditional chicken dinner from KFC, ya know!

:-P

[EDINVA]

Yes they were vicious in WWII. I know some older folks who served in the Pacific Theatre who would never be able to say a kind word about the Japanese, or even a single Japanese.

My experience is limited to my daughter’s experience there, and it was just amazing. The day she left her little village, literally half the population came out to the train station to see her off .. with gifts, tears, etc. And that train was at the crack of dawn! Hell, I wouldn’t get up to see my daughter off at the crack of dawn .. I’d tell her to call a cab and let me know when she arrived where she was going ;)

[jch10]

AIT, thanks for this refreshing post. I didn’t have a clue about Japanese customs regarding Christmas.

Merry Christmas to you.
Merry Christmas, Japan.

[El Cid]

Merry Christmas!

Thanks for sharing the pictures and stories...

[alfa6]

Thanks for the ping AiT and a Happy Holidays to you, snicker, snicker:-)

MERRY CHRISTMAS

From Kansas no less

Best Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[AmericanInTokyo]

THAILAND!!??

[AmericanInTokyo]

It is called "osechi ryori" and it actually looks and tastes something like this. Each piece of New Years Day food has a specific meaning, of they are plays on words, i.e. the Japanese word for the food is also a word for some element of "good luck". Some of these elements of meals take 2 or 3 hours to prepare with a lot of love. They start January 1st this way in most homes. Not to mention hitting the Gekkeikan sake bottle pretty heavily.

[AmericanInTokyo]

thank you for your reply

[tsomer]

there are a lot of Christmas decorations in Japan this time of year, most of it lacks any religious connection (no Nativity scenes that I can remember)...

It's probably a commercial celebration.

Look on the box of Christmas decorations you purchased lately--it reads "Made in China." In the fifties and sixties, the box would have read "Made in Japan."

I don't think it's bad. Christmas was originally a pagan holiday, corresponding to winter's shortest day (forget what it's called.) It also had a psychological component, light in darkness, gorging in anticipation of the long winter, evergreen trees to recall spring. It was also associated with the Persian cult of Mithras, celebrated on December 25. There were many converts in Rome, especially in the legions.

I think the Catholic church adopted the day and assigned a Christian character. Protestants, especially the Puritans did not approve. Was it Cromwell or the New England Puritans who outlawed it.

The essential Christian celebration is Easter, though that has pagan precursors as well.