Click on picture to enlarge.Emails from Kirsten & Naoto
December 2002
Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2002 02:00:57 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Christmas and New Year's in Japan
Dear Friends and Family;
Merry Christmas, Happy New Years, and other seasonal greetings.
We are counting down the last week of school here before we go to Seattle to see my family. Things I am looking forward to;
cafe lattes
taco bell
books in English
My sister-in-law's cooking
bagels
TV in English!
Seeing Lord of the Rings with Mark, my brother
cheese that isn't advertised as "the best melting"
Things I am not looking forward to;
spending 9-10 hours on a plane with Mia
In other Mia news, she is still not walking. She climbed our stairs for the first time completely from top to bottom today. She loves climbing.
Her first verifiable word was "hi." (or maybe "bye"- she's not big on consonants) However, her second word is definitely "ba ba" meaning bottle. Unfortunately, "ba ba" is the word for grandma in Japanese, so I think there is going to be confusion for a while.
Christmas
Because there isn't really a "thanksgiving" consciousness in Japan, the Christmas decorations go up right around the beginning of November. You start hearing "Last Christmas, I gave you my heart, but the very next day, you gave it away" everywhere.
Oh yes, and the Colonel Sanders statues (as seen in previous photo) begins sporting a Santa outfit. (by the way, Mia is still terrified of him. Naoto and I torture her by taking her by the KFC every time we go shopping in that mall.)
KFC is a big deal in Japan. Lots of people eat KFC for some reason on Christmas. A neighbor told me back when I was living in Utsunomiya that some KFC's hire guards just to direct the traffic of papas coming to pick up their orders on Christmas Day.
Oh yes, and then there is the Christmas Cake. Christmas cake is cardboard (ok it is actual cake, but it tastes like cardboard to me) expansively decorated with strawberries, marzipan figures, and delicately swirled frosting.
No one wants to eat it after the 25th. This leads to calling "old maids" (over 25) in Japan "Christmas Cake."
On Christmas, the hotels and restaurants are booked solid with couples who are having "romantic" evenings. It's a perfect night to propose marriage.
Christmas isn't a big family deal here, it's a commercial import from overseas. It's all the fluff, annoying music, toy campaigns and commercialism without a whiff of deeper meaning. Not that you don't get that in the States, too, but at least you can balance it by going to a Church or hanging out with family.
New Year's
New Year's Eve/Day is the big family holiday in Japan. The night of the 31st, many Japanese go to shrines and pray. (okay, it's not really praying like Western Christians think. It's more like "please help me pass the entrance exam this year" or "please don't let my mother-in-law make that nasty jellyfish dish again this year.") They also buy lucky charms for the coming year.
At Temples, bells are struck 108 times around midnight, once for each Buddhist sin.
The first three days of the new year people hang out with their families. They also go around and visit the houses of friends and neighbors. There is much eating of special food called "osechi ryori." This is food that can last a long time without refigeration or major cooking. This is so mom can rest a little. Each food has some kind of meaning as a play on the name of that food. For example, they eat snapper, called "tai" in Japanese. This is because the "tai" sounds like "happy congratulations" in Japanese "omedetai."
I am not overly fond of osechi ryori. It's kind of yucky and cold, but you have to eat it anyway.
There are special games for kids, and they get money from adults.
So this year, our family is celebrating Christmas in Seattle, and then we are coming back in time for New Year's in Japan. We get the best of both worlds :)
I hope this season brings joy and peace to you. (and I wish the world- but not with Bush as our president, I fear.)
love and light,
Kirsten
P.S. the picture is of Mia climbing the stairs. I don't think she's figured out how to come down yet.
Click on picture to enlarge.