Somebody wasn't happy about getting coal in their stocking?
Posted on 12/25/2020 5:25:31 PM PST by marshmallow
There is nothing like Christmas in the Land of the Rising Sun to unleash a collective frenzy of romance
What makes Christmas in Japan so unique? Faith has no place in it.
Being a secular holiday is not only a time for the usual shopping spree but also a special day for couples to go on a date. A dinner at a luxury French restaurant will be followed by a walk through the “illumination” sites, which are spectacular Christmas lights. They call them the kurisumasu irumineshon, and often in the background, a famous jingle is the Koibito ga Santa kurousu (My lover is Santa Claus).
These spots become the set of real tourist pilgrimages — even in times of pandemic — in search of the most beautiful or most extravagant arrangement. It doesn't take a lot of effort to spot them as they are scattered everywhere through the urban landscape, especially near the hundreds of train stations that are the dynamic centers of a metropolis like Tokyo.
After the “illumination walk,” the couple will most likely spend the night in a way-in-advance-reserved hotel room.
There are evenings expressly organized for the notoriously large number of singles who, on the night of Christmas Eve, find themselves without a partner. The Christmas konkatsu goes even one step further as the participants engage in rationally organized parties for the express purpose to find a potential marriage partner. And anyone looking for a soulmate better reserve a seat weeks ahead as they tend to get filled pretty quickly.
Over the years the “Christmas date” has become such a popular custom — it is the second most participated event after the New Year celebrations — that it gave rise to an urban myth: the big number of suicides committed at Christmas due to the breaking......
(Excerpt) Read more at ucanews.com ...
Not to mention that their favorite food for Christmas is....fried chicken. Specifically, KFC.
Not sure why.
I did business in Japan for over 25 years. They love to take western holidays and interpret them through Japanese eyes. Like the KFC thing. Christmas time was always my favorite time to visit there for that reason. Great fun!!!!
Years ago my friend Ira was in Japan over Christmas. He was a teacher who could not return home to USA over Christmas.
He was getting very home sick, walking down the street in one of the shopping box store areas of Osaka, he noticed that clerks were in the process of erecting a window display.
He stopped to watch their work, and after a few minutes of setting various items on the floor of the display they carried in a full sized cross upon which was crucifies a life sized Santa Claus!
Ira , who ironically is Jewish,laughed so hard he forgot about being home sick. He promptly went to a sake bar and knocked a few back.Christmas is not accurately understood in Japan by the general populace. On;ly a small minority of Japanese are Christians . The Japanese are so mannerly and polite. They would have been shocked at their fauz pas protestation of the banal commercialism of Christmas. Christmas in japan is an informal festival when lovers give each other gifts.
Christmas inHong Kng was a study crass commercialism. I alwy like how the reindeer on the buildings changed into whatever animal of the Chinese New Year zodiac on December 26.
Ditto, it’s beautiful. They do a great job decorating public places.
“Only a small minority of Japanese are Christians”.
The largest concentration of Japanese Christians once lived in Nagasaki.
Had we known...?
There was a Catholic Church just outside the Navy base in Yokosuka. Not the main gate but one of the side gates. I lived in an apartment just down the street from it and regret having never gone there. It probably would have been better than what was offered on the base.
Somebody wasn't happy about getting coal in their stocking?
They don’t have many turkeys in Japan, so KFC sized on the opportunity in the 70s to get people to eat chicken instead. It stuck.
Eight priests in the big Nagasaki church survived the bomb, they all lived to old age with no radiation illness. They were praying the rosary eight blocks from ground zero.
Heh, as altar boy, I spent time in the base church in Yokosuka sampling the Manischewitz Wine and eating the hosts from a plastic bag they store them in...
I am sure that if I were still a practicing Catholic, I could look forward to smoking a turd in Purgatory for those transgressions!
THATS IT. Great find!
Engrish!
The big church had somehow caught fire and the fire department had scooped out the remains of a church office. There were dozens of Catholic medallions piled around the entry...
I do believe that my older brother went to that school...I had to go to the Sullivan’s School on the base...:)
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