Christmas in Japan

Hi everybody,

I should apologise again and again for my delay but I guess it does not make sense anymore. First of all, happy new year to everyone, although we are already in February. I want to write today about my experience over Christmas in Japan. I guess you will be wondering if they celebrate Christmas in Japan. I can answer yes... and no, and now I will explain you why.

Japan is not a country specially religious, and even less Christian, so they do not have this point of view of the celebration (no Jesus, no crib, no drags). But, on the other hand, they are part from a high consumer society, together with the stark influence of occidental countries and that they join and copy any idea which sounds funny. This makes that during one month, everywhere one can find Christmas trees, Santa Claus, special illumination and listen Christmas songs. In this link you can find many pictures of the illumination in different wards of Tokyo. In Tsukuba we have also this kind of decoration...

One of the things that surprise here is that the 25th is not a special day, actually it is not even holiday!! However, the evening of the 24th is celebrated in many different ways. For instance, many families dinner chicken, chicken? it was not turkey? No, here is chicken. It seems that thirty years ago, the yankee food chain Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) (to whom does not know the company, KFC is some kind of McDonald's but with chicken, and from my experience is quite fatty) made a marketing campaign convincing Japanese people that the most typical thing is eating chicken the Christmas eve, and if it is from their franchise even better! And it is not a joke, at that day people reserve their food per telephone and several hours later they go to pick it up to the shop (!!??)... surrealist. I have found in internet a video where you can see the queue of people waiting for the chicken. The young guy that appears at the end is from the shop, his sign says that at that part of the queue you have to wait for TWO HOURS to get to the food!! :-o On the other hand, the Christmas eve is considered a romantic night, and couples go out for dinner, or two persons that want to be a couple afterwards, some kind of Valentine's Day. It is curious that a that night one can only reserve tables for two...

But, on the the other hand, the 23th of December is a national holiday, why? advanced Christmas holiday? Not really, it is the birthday of the emperor of Japan. And about this, I will concentrate the rest of my post. As is explained in the wikipedia, at that day, the emperor and his family open the palace to the public. Should this means that the normal people can drink coffee with them in their living room? Not exactly. In general, the Imperial Palace can not be visited except from the external garden (by the way, very nice in spring). But at that day, one can enter the inner grounds, in particular one of the yards. In the photo you can see people crossing the nice bridge that usually is closed to the public. In the second, they enter in the reserved part.

The Japanese (and the infiltrators, you will see them in the next photos) enter en masse in the yard with their flag in the hand, after having passed through several security controls. Then, the emperor appear at the balcony, the people give an ovation or their congratulation wishes, then he says some words, people again give an ovation, and the visit is finished.

Then, the people leave the yard, and after a while, another group of Japanese enters the yard and the same ceremony restarts. I do not remember exactly, but I think they told me that there are cycles every two hours, so imagine what for a day!






The Imperial Palace is also open the 2nd of January for the New Year Greeting of the emperor to the people. New Year is probably the most important festivity in Japan and about it I will write in my next post.



A hug