Re: When did Halloween become so commercial in Japan?
Posted: Wed Nov 06, 2013 11:01 pm
I thought I'd resurrect this old topic from last year. Last week I carved up my pumpkin with my daughter Ulan to make a jack-o-lantern. I took a video of it while explaining the process in my lousy Japanese and uploaded it to Youtube, since I have a lot of subscribers from Japan. I put it outside around 6:00 or so with a candle lit inside. I left it like that overnight. When I left the next morning for work, the candle was still lit! I was surprised.
There is one woman in the next apartment building over whom I have spoken to several times. She's a friendly person, and she has a 3 year old son that Ulan enjoys playing with. I have yet to meet her husband, but she too is disappointed with how unfriendly the other kids in the neighborhood are. I invited her to stop by on Halloween night with her son so that I could give some candy to him. The boy was so excited to see the jack-o-lantern! But here is why the concept of trick or treating won't work in Japan, despite Halloween's apparent popularity here: she brought a whole gift bag of stuff she'd bought at home decor store for us as a gift. I thought I had made it clear that I was just going to give him a few pieces of candy and that she needn't bring us anything. Japanese people's adversity to bothering other people along with their insistence of reciprocating will prevent the fun of Halloween from truly taking root in this culture. Halloween is all about being wagamama (selfish) and zuzushii (imposing) and those two concepts are contrary to Japan's established traditions. When I tell people here about trick-or-treating, they say, "Oh, America must be such a friendly country." Hah! Well, no. Americans just don't hesitate to bother each other.
The Japanese sense of kigane (reluctance to trouble others) runs deep. For the most part, I enjoy it. I can ride the train without some weird dink next to me asking me what book I'm reading, or walk clear across Tokyo without somebody begging me for some spare change. But when it comes to Halloween and such, it would be nice for people to shed their inhibitions and have fun. These kids really want to have fun like this, but it is an aging population, and the old people aren't going to change at all.
This year, the shotengai (shopping street) on the north side of the main train station had a Halloween event where kids can dress up and go trick-or-treating to all of the shops along the street. That's as close as they can get, I guess, especially because it wasn't even on Halloween night. Last year, I saw some parents making an attempt to take their kids trick-or-treating. I think it was coordinated by a kindergarten or something, and they would stop at only designated homes to ask for candy.
Lastly, I watched the "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" Peanuts episode so many times in October, showing it mostly to elementary students, but occasionally to junior high. It's a Japanese DVD, so we could watch it in English with Japanese subtitles. Everyone knows Snoopy, but very few kids have ever seen a Peanuts cartoon... even the biggest Snoopy fangirls! The subtitles translate the show sufficiently, I guess, but I notice that the sarcasm is glossed over. There is a lot of sarcasm in Peanuts, and I never really noticed this until I paid attention to the Japanese subtitles. I once watched it dubbed in Japanese when I showed it to the handicapped JHS kids. They made the kids' voices too cute! They aren't supposed to be like that! They are supposed to sound more like miniature adults, full of adult concerns. Instead, the Japanese voice actors just treat the characters like they are so adorable. In English, when Charlie Brown puts on his ghost blanket costume with too many eye holes, Lucy just says, "Oh good grief." Instead of just having her say "mattaku," she instead says, "henna obake!" (strange ghost!) They toned down the exasperation and sarcasm in which the kids speak to each other. It was disappointing to hear this dubbed.
There is one woman in the next apartment building over whom I have spoken to several times. She's a friendly person, and she has a 3 year old son that Ulan enjoys playing with. I have yet to meet her husband, but she too is disappointed with how unfriendly the other kids in the neighborhood are. I invited her to stop by on Halloween night with her son so that I could give some candy to him. The boy was so excited to see the jack-o-lantern! But here is why the concept of trick or treating won't work in Japan, despite Halloween's apparent popularity here: she brought a whole gift bag of stuff she'd bought at home decor store for us as a gift. I thought I had made it clear that I was just going to give him a few pieces of candy and that she needn't bring us anything. Japanese people's adversity to bothering other people along with their insistence of reciprocating will prevent the fun of Halloween from truly taking root in this culture. Halloween is all about being wagamama (selfish) and zuzushii (imposing) and those two concepts are contrary to Japan's established traditions. When I tell people here about trick-or-treating, they say, "Oh, America must be such a friendly country." Hah! Well, no. Americans just don't hesitate to bother each other.
The Japanese sense of kigane (reluctance to trouble others) runs deep. For the most part, I enjoy it. I can ride the train without some weird dink next to me asking me what book I'm reading, or walk clear across Tokyo without somebody begging me for some spare change. But when it comes to Halloween and such, it would be nice for people to shed their inhibitions and have fun. These kids really want to have fun like this, but it is an aging population, and the old people aren't going to change at all.
This year, the shotengai (shopping street) on the north side of the main train station had a Halloween event where kids can dress up and go trick-or-treating to all of the shops along the street. That's as close as they can get, I guess, especially because it wasn't even on Halloween night. Last year, I saw some parents making an attempt to take their kids trick-or-treating. I think it was coordinated by a kindergarten or something, and they would stop at only designated homes to ask for candy.
Lastly, I watched the "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" Peanuts episode so many times in October, showing it mostly to elementary students, but occasionally to junior high. It's a Japanese DVD, so we could watch it in English with Japanese subtitles. Everyone knows Snoopy, but very few kids have ever seen a Peanuts cartoon... even the biggest Snoopy fangirls! The subtitles translate the show sufficiently, I guess, but I notice that the sarcasm is glossed over. There is a lot of sarcasm in Peanuts, and I never really noticed this until I paid attention to the Japanese subtitles. I once watched it dubbed in Japanese when I showed it to the handicapped JHS kids. They made the kids' voices too cute! They aren't supposed to be like that! They are supposed to sound more like miniature adults, full of adult concerns. Instead, the Japanese voice actors just treat the characters like they are so adorable. In English, when Charlie Brown puts on his ghost blanket costume with too many eye holes, Lucy just says, "Oh good grief." Instead of just having her say "mattaku," she instead says, "henna obake!" (strange ghost!) They toned down the exasperation and sarcasm in which the kids speak to each other. It was disappointing to hear this dubbed.
Apparently he thought that it was common to have a tree, like at Christmas, and decorate it with Halloween stuff instead! (I actually HAVE seen some people do this, but she had to politely inform him that wasn't a common Halloween practice.)