Hey Everyone!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I didn’t spend winter holidays in Japan for 2009, so it was nice to spend it in Japan this year and learn more about how the holidays are spent here. So in this blog I’ll give you a brief intro to the holidays in Japan (based on what little I know) and then try to do a quick lookback at 2010 (particularly the past few months, which I didn’t blog about…sorry!!). Enjoy!
Christmas:
Christmas in Japan is very different from that in Canada and other countries. In Canada we spend Christmas with our family, but in Japan it is spent with girlfriends/boyfriends. Turkey is hard to come by, so it is replaced by chicken, with Kentucky Fried Chicken being the chicken of choice. It is really popular to eat “Christmas Cake” on Christmas Day. People order Christmas Cakes way in advance in order for them to be delivered on Christmas Day. As for similarities, there is a lot of beautiful Christmas lights everywhere (even better than most I’ve seen in Canada!) as well as shopping. Since Japan is mostly Buddhist/non-religious, Christmas is also mostly a secular holiday in Japan. Recently, some children have started getting presents for Christmas, like in the West.
New Years:
New Years is way more important than Christmas in Japan, which is the opposite in Canada. New Years in Japan is spent with family and large meals are eaten (sometimes ordered from restaurants on large platters as take-out, to take a break from cooking). Children love New Years because they are given a lot of money in red envelopes by their families. People will write New Years cards for their relatives, friends, coworkers, clients, etc. and give them to the post office much in advance so that the cards are delivered on New Year’s Day. Certain types of food are eaten on New Years (like soba noodles, ozoni soup, etc.) and there is a particular reason why each one is eaten.
For New Years, Yuki cooked up some delicious ozouni (light soup with mochi, cabbage, and other veggies), fish, and toshikoshi (“entering the new year”?) soba. Also we went to my friend Kyoko’s house to spend New Year’s Day with her family, and she made sashimi from squid and fish which her husband caught, squid tempura, sweet black beans, and chestnuts. Her son, Takeshi, who I play soccer with, got really drunk and did Jackie Chan impersonations =) I played card games with the grandchildren and they showed me some crazy DS games =) So it was fun!
We stayed up to watch the sunrise on New Year’s Day, and it was amazing! There’s supposed to be some symbolism about the first sunrise – like the sunbeams representing gods’ hands or something. Also the first sunrise, the first visit to a shrine, and the many firsts of the new year are very important.
I’m sure there’s lots more to be said about New Year’s..but I don’t know that much, and many websites do (so just look if you’re interested!)
Looking back at the latter part of 2010:
(Mt. Inasa, 3rd best night view in Japan!)
Christmas – Yuki and I went to Nagasaki for Christmas.. It was really beautiful! There are lots of mountains, islands, and scenery. There was even a place with whirlpools (where the ocean water meets the water from Japan’s inland sea) but we didn’t get a good view. We went to Huis Ten Bosch, a European-style amusement park which had delicious cheese (!!), chocolate, rose jam, and cake. We went canoeing, saw a bunch of Christmas lights (including buildings that lit up according to a Michael Jackson song!). We also ate some famous, delicious food from Nagasaki, like castella (cake), Sasebo burgers, and 豚まん (steamed pork bun).
We spent 3 days there and it ended up being a bit more pricier than expected, but probably less expensive than going to Korea for a week like we planned to do earlier (we cancelled because of the North-South Korea attack, though it didn’t turn out so badly after all..). So hopefully we can go to Korea, too,when it’s a bit cheaper.
New kid’s in town: One ALT from Usuki finished his contract and a new guy, Michael, started working here. He’s really cool – he’s travelled around the world, and he taught math in the states – and he’s a good friend to hang out with. After I came back from Canada in the summer, I helped him a bit to get settled into life in Japan.
Halloween for kids: I helped plan and organize a Halloween party for over 100 kids, full with a haunted house and games. It was the fifth or sixth year of the event, but it was almost cancelled this year because the organizer from last year left Usuki. Thanks to a lot of help from many volunteers, we were able to pull it off again this year and it was a blast.
Japanese Presentation: I prepared for and helped with a presentation on how to learn Japanese (for other JETs in Oita). Despite preparing for awhile, and thinking I had useful stuff to say to the others, it turned out I didn’t know much at all. The best advice came from others – ie find a drama that you love and watch the same episodes over and over until they are stuck in your head, then practice speaking along with the drama and compare your intonation and pronunciation to that of the drama.
Ajikan concert! I finally got a chance to see Ajikan with Yuki and it was really awesome!
Game Parties! I introduced Yuki and our friend Mariko into board games, and they both seem to enjoy them. So we had a few parties with my cousin and some good friends in Kumamoto. We also did a few trips to the Costco in Fukuoka!! =)
Settling in… After spending a year without any furniture in my apartment, I finally picked up a nice bed, dining room table, microwave and such, so it definitely looks and feels more hospitable =) I haven’t really done any traveling outside of Kyushu, so most of my money has gone into that..and now I’m gonna start saving! =)
Coming up.. My birthday next week, going to the gym, setting up a daily schedule and studying more Japanese/math/teaching, …
