Not Home for the Holidays: Surviving Overseas

It’s that time. I remember my first year in Japan learning what Christmas meant there. In Japan Christmas is more of a romantic holiday. Couples are meant to spend time together. KFC (yes, Kentucky Fried Chicken) is popular - so popular you have to order in advance and then wait in lines one would expect to see at Disney to pick up your food. Christmas lights and decorations are very popular. Gift giving is becoming more popular. Christmas cake and delivery pizza is also huge. It’s just enough to make you miss Christmas at home.

The more celebrated holiday is New Year. New Year is something to experience, and it’s one of several things that you can only appreciate by living there. On a normal Tokyo day there are millions and millions of people out working, eating, and shopping. For the first three days of the year all this stops so completely that I could easily imagine what the post-apocalypse would feel like. It’s a ghost town. Everything closes. Absolutely everything. Things that you thought couldn’t close, close. ATM’s close. Grocery stores close. I know people who had to borrow money because they didn’t realize the impossible nature of getting anything done during the New Year holiday. In more recent years, some stores and banks are changing this trend, but the transformation is still startling. It’s meant to be three or four days at home, relaxing with friends and family.

It’s hard to be away from family at this time, but there are things to do and experience. One Christmas I went out with friends to karaoke to sing Christmas songs. We started about 3:00 o’clock and the day was sunny, bright, and cold. We came out and it was dark and snowing. There were two to three inches of snow on the ground, so of course there was a giant snowball fight. It was an amazing amount of fun. I would get strange and wonderful gifts from students. One student gave me stamps so I could send Christmas cards. Pens and towels were popular gifts, or fruit. We went to Ginza one year - a restaurant was having a turkey dinner, buffet style. I went to a church service one year with my friend Gail in Shinagawa. I was able to find elements of what I loved about Christmas: spending time with friends, gifts, food, and lights.

I grew to love the New Year holiday almost as much as Christmas. I lived next to Soujiji in Tsurumi, one of the larger temples in Japan. New Year holiday my wife and I would watch special New Year’s TV shows then go out to the temple around midnight. There was almost a festival atmosphere at the temple. There were all my favorite festival foods. Potatoes and butter. Corn on the cob. Grilled chicken on skewers. We stood in line to say a quiet prayer and threw some change in the donation box (someone told me to wear a hood as it gets crowded and people try to throw money from a distance - he did it one year and collected 300 yen meant for the temple).

The next two days we spent eating, drinking and sleeping. It’s a time a relaxation you rarely get to see in Japan. My mother-in-law always made it a point to cook something amazing - crab legs one year that were so good I almost cried. My grandmother-in-law made mame mochi, mochi with beans in it that I came to crave and can eat an embarrassing amount of. If you live in the Chicago area, the Japanese grocery (Mitsuwa) in Arlington Heights makes mochi around New Year’s. My father-in-law always gave me a bottle of sake, which I always insisted he help me drink. One year, feeling especially lazy, my wife and I slept on the sofa in the living room where we woke up late, ate snacks, and watched the ekiden. The ekiden is a relay marathon run by university students that goes from Hakone to Tokyo.

I did miss my family and the more traditional elements of the American holiday season and there really is no substitute. I have that back now, and find myself thinking back to Japan around this time and missing it.

For those overseas - enjoy this holiday season, because of the differences or in spite of them.

Happy Holidays!