January 30, 2012
Jessica's Japanese Christmas
The holidays here in Japan are definitely different from in Australia.
One of the main differences is that Australia has a Christian culture, and they believe that Christmas is more important that New Years, compared to Japan which believes that New Years is more important than Christmas.
Another difference was the seasons, from December to February it is summer in Australia and we usually enjoy the Christmas season by singing Christmas carols, going to church, exchanging presents with loved ones and gathering together to have lunch with our families, which includes having barbeques. Occasionally there is the danger of bush fires, since most people live so close to nature reserves, but I’ve been lucky enough to avoid them.
Even the Christmas cake is different from Japan. Our Christmas cake is a very dark coloured cake, which is full of alcohol and dried fruit. I was very surprised when I saw Christmas in Japan, after seeing all the decorations hung up I first thought that everyone here celebrated it, but I was wrong. In Japan Christmas is treated as a romantic date night, instead of a time to spend with their families. My friends told me that they went to Tokyo tower to see the illuminations, which they expected to be in red and green, the traditional colours of Christmas. Instead they saw pink hearts on the tower, which made them think of Valentine’s Day.
When I think about it, the holidays are reversed from what they are back at home. Compared to in Australia, where Christmas is a family holiday and New Years being a time to hang out with friends, Japan is the opposite, where they go out with friends on Christmas and spend time with their families on New Years.
At midnight this year, my home stay family took me to some nearby shrines, where we clapped our hands and rang the bell at the front. The first shrine only had a few people, but at the second shrine we had to wait in line for almost an hour! Some other Japanese New Year customs are that people eat very fancy Japanese styled breakfasts, such as mochi (a squishy type of food made out of rice) and fish. They also send out special postcards that arrive exactly on New Year’s Day.
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It was very interesting being able to see the differences and similarities in our cultures.