Christmas, Christmas Time is Here~

Ah, Christmas. That beautiful time of year when we remember the birth of Jesus, spend time with family, admire the glimmering lights, carol with friends, cuddle under the kotatsu, write dozens of nengajyo, and eat a bucket of KFC. Wait, what? Okay, so Christmas in Japan is a skosh* different from America. I got a bit miffed when I first started to notice the differences between the two Christmases, but it isn’t such a big problem now, more like a nation-wide game of I SPY. “Can you see the difference? I spy with my little eye something slightly off”. Well, maybe not like that, but something that makes it more Japanese.

Some things that has been fun is seeing all the decorations. Everything is ornate and well organized, matched, and arranged. I love looking at all the displays in stores and along the street. Kichijoji has a display called "Underground Christmas" in which these little robot moles act out various holiday scenes in their burrows. I thought it was adorable! Even my dorm mates got into the decorating spirit. They put up a Christmas tree in the lobby. However, according to my friend Jerry, a Christmas tree expert of the 4^th degree, the branches have too many gaps, the tinsel only is on the top half of the tree, and someone started putting unrelated ornaments it which ruined the whole feel. Personally, the childish way the tree was put together made it rather cute, like the tree that my sister and I would have in our bedroom that only we were allowed to decorate. What is more, I came home today to find that one of the first floor boys had bought (if he made these, I will be floored) tiny, delicate Christmas cookies and hung them in the tree for people to take.

Another first floor boy made a gingerbread house that looks exactly, EXACTLY, like our dorm, complete with pod sections and the security entrance. He even had a window for each of the rooms and a little garden of sugar candies on the second floor terrace! The piece is uncanny. Working off of his inspiration, some second floor girls also made a little gingerbread and left it in our kitchen for the other girls to see.For example, my dorm wanted to join in the campus caroling session. Fine, no problem, I love a little holiday spirit. But when it came time to pick the carols, they choose Seasons of Love from Rent the Musical and Ookina Furui Dokei (The Old Grandfather’s Clock) by Hirai Ken. Both are fine, lovely songs, but neither are Christmas carols nor speak to the message, feeling, or season Christmas. Okay, fine, no problem, if this is what they want, and they are willing to practice, we shouldn’t fight it, after all it is their country and their Christmas, so just calm down now.

Another example, Christmas here isn’t a family holiday, it is a couples/friends holiday. Sort of like a winter Valentine’s Day. Kichijoji (my favorite little city), has a giant lights display outside the station, but it is of a huge heart and ribbons for Christmas Couples. Having a Christmas date is seen as the perfect way to spend the day and is what all the Japanese consider ideal. If you don’t have a date for Christmas, you are said to be having a “Lonely Christmas”, sort of like the Black Heart’s Club. Um, what about the entire reason for the holiday in the first place? Or, less religious than that, what happened to the season of giving and “going home for the holidays”? Once again, we just need to calm down, do things their way, not everyone is Christian and you shouldn’t force ideologies on other people. But it makes me wonder; how did all of this get lost in translation? How did Western Christmas get so altered while appearing almost identical at first glance?

At the beginning of the month, we were having a bit of a wet season, but that all cleared up soon enough and by the 23^rd, things were even starting to warm up! How strange is this! A Christmas without snow? I haven’t experienced that since I lived in Kansas. We did have a minor earthquake at 2 am the other day, got hit by a tsunami that afternoon (barely felt the effects of it here, though), missed out on the lunar eclipse due to cloud cover from the tsunami, but did get a clear, full moon on Wednesday night. So the last few days have been a tumult of natural phenomenon. Tis the season!

Christmas itself is going to be very exciting for me, though! I’ll be spending it with my best friend Gina from Witt who is also studying in Japan right now. We are spending Christmas together in Tokyo (going to see the new Tron movie and see a ska concert on Christmas Day), and then head off to trek across the western part of the island! I’m so excited I can’t sleep, which is good because I still need to pack and do laundry and write more blogs before I’m on hiatus for about 2 weeks, but bad because I’ll be super drowsy (maybe) when I see her tomorrow. All will end well, though – it always does with Gina.

To all of you back home (and to those who have just returned home for break), Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

*skosh comes from the Japanese word sukoshi (少し) meaning “small or little”, and is a prime example of gaijin Jingrish or Japanglish.