05 Track 5

Review unit 2

fluency practice

review reading 3

That Unique Japanese Holiday called… Christmas

Page 113

That Unique Japanese Holiday called… Christmas

Christmas is such a popular holiday that it’s no surprise that the Japanese celebrated as well to the Western person who visits Japan at the end of the year. Many sights and sounds are familiar. The Santas and adds the big displays and the Christmas music in the stores. The lights on the houses stockings stuffed with toys and decorated trees.

But look a bit closer and you begin to realize that the Japanese interpretation of Christmas is something rather different. For one thing, Christmas is more of a fun start to the holidays rather than the main event.

In Japan, the most important holiday of the season is New Year’s Day, which comes one week later. New Year is the big traditional holiday when family and friends get together.

In fact, Christmas is not officially a holiday at all. Most people have to work that day, unless it happens to fall on a weekend. As a result, people celebrate on Christmas Eve.

What do the Japanese do on Christmas Eve? Often, they go out for dinner at a fancy restaurant. This custom has become very popular, and most good restaurants are fully booked for that evening.

It is the ideal time for couples to go out for a special evening, where they dress up, give each other presents, and enjoy a delicious meal. Christmas has become associated with romance, rather like Valentine’s Day in the West.

The food is an important part of the Christmas celebrations. Japanese do not usually eat roast turkey or baked ham on Christmas. They are more likely to eat fried or teriyaki chicken, fried potatoes, cheese-stuffed wonton, or even pizza.

The favorite dessert is “Christmas cake,” which hardly exists in the West. It is a light, not very sweet cake covered with whipped cream and fruit such as strawberries, sometimes with a plastic Santa Clause for decoration on top. Stores everywhere compete to sell their own unique cakes in the days leading up to Christmas.

As in the West, gift-giving is a big part of the holiday, but it takes on its own character in Japan. On their big night out, romantic partners may give each other flowers, cute stuffed toys, or rings and other jewelry.

Within the family, parents may give presence to their young children, although it’s usually not vice versa.

The idea here is that the gifts come from Santa Claus, so it only makes sense to give them while the children are still young enough to believe in Santa.

It is customary to give presence called oseibo to bosses and colleagues, to teachers, or to other people outside the immediate circle of friends and family.

These gifts function as a way of showing appreciation of people who have performed some type of service for you.

Christians make up only a very small part (less than two percent) of the population of Japan, so people are not very familiar with the religious roots of the holiday.

Nevertheless, the Japanese have an amazing ability to import elements from other cultures and integrate them with their own culture.

For example, Buddhism, the parliamentary form of government, large corporations, and the current educational system all originally came from abroad.

These things are so successful in today’s Japan precisely because they are no longer exactly the same as they were. Like Christmas, the Japanese made them uniquely their own.