Why I Avoid CHRISTMAS in Japan

[Music] ah christmas my favorite time of year there we go perfect we all love it for different reasons family food jesus as for me i like it because of the presence to get the presents that i so sorely deserve i like to mope beneath the christmas tree the night before christmas and guess what's inside each and every box this year though my christmas eve was rather stressful when i opened my phone to reveal some some pretty worrying news instead of getting a jovial man burst down my chimney i received a news alert informing me that my beloved bathmat that i've been using every day for two years now is actually filled with asbestos the toxic fiber known to cause lung cancer asbestos heavy bath mat yeah on the second day of christmas my true love gave to me a bathmat filled with asbestos and a partridge in a pear tree doesn't really work does it doesn't really fit the sort of upbeat christmas narrative yes rather embarrassingly it turns out one of japan's biggest retailers sold 2.4 million items manufactured in a dodgy factory in china where they tried to cut costs by stuffing various household items full of asbestos and if you know the correct way to dispose of asbestos please leave a comment below help because i don't really know what to do i mean i could do in a brawl in japan christmas giveaway could be rather good no actually it's probably not a good idea but to be fair in a year where absolutely everything went wrong it seemed like a fitting end to the year seemed like a fitting end to 2020 to get a visit from the ghost of christmas asbestos now for the past eight years that i've lived in japan um i've actually only been here for three christmases typically i flee to the uk to stuff myself full of mulled wine and cheese but with everything going on in the world i couldn't do that this year and there are many reasons that i avoid christmas in japan like a lot of foreign residents that i know living here so in this video i thought i'd answer some key questions number one what's it like to have christmas in japan number two why do i avoid it and number three why do i recommend not visiting the country between late december and early january for some pretty big reasons which i'll get into in a minute but before that you might be wondering what father christmas did actually bring me this year in between bath mats filled with cancer and i did actually receive some pretty amazing things and some not so amazing things as well but we'll start with the good stuff and my first thing is this cd projekt red the makers of cyberpunk 2077 uh send me a collector's edition of the game in this gigantic box because it turns out some of the team at cd projekt red actually watch abroad in japan how awesome is that and i look forward to playing that on my imaginary playstation 5 when it arrives sometime in the next 10 years because right now not even god can get a hold of a playstation 5. i do have a playstation 4 but i want to wait until the glitches and performance issues have been ironed out so i could play it the way it was meant to be played so thank you to cd projekt red for my favorite christmas present the second present well it couldn't be any more different you might be aware that here on the abroad japan channel we've tried and failed miserably to uh get ken watanabe japan's number one actor to feature on the show for some years now fantastic actor you might have seen him in inception godzilla or the last samurai however my pursuit of him has been so ruthless so obsessive and disturbing that i suspect any chances of ever getting him on the show are pretty much gone by now unfortunately this christmas an incredible viewer sent the next best thing uh which is of course [ __ ] up a life-size cardboard cutout of the man himself there he is ken watanabe in the flesh in the cardboard and i look forward to finding a use for ken sometime in 2021 most likely to uh scare children right let's just put him over here in the background good old ken there you go actually it looks really looks really quite disturbing let's just not do that you can go over there ken right present number three we're now going into not so good present territory i think that might be an understatement this is white musk uh air freshener it has this rather troubling english on the front that says uh john's blend hang it in a closet a bedroom entrance doorknob etc john's proud aroma will spread in your room john's proud aroma will spread in your room what a disgrace who is john why is he so proud of his aroma what does it actually smell like oh god [ __ ] it smells like cigarettes apples and despair i don't know what john was thinking i don't know why he's proud of that and finally firmly at the bottom of my list quite comfortably is this pen shaped like a carrot might just be the worst christmas present of all time from a now former friend and it says here in big letters fresh veggie pen these look so real veggies these look so real veggies but they are pens the veggie pen would be a very fun gift item would it it's hard to imagine why someone felt this was an appropriate gift item an item so unimaginably [ __ ] that it's practically begging for somebody to buy as a gift um there you go a carrot like a pen clearly no expense spared there i'm starting to think the asbestos bath map would make a better gift than this so how does japan celebrate christmas does it celebrate christmas at all well even though roughly one percent of japan's population claims to be christian and december 25th is not a public holiday the christmas season does still exist in a rather bastardized commercialized form in fact on the surface it almost looks like christmas back home in europe or north america you've got the decorations the music the christmas trees the kfc bucket all right maybe not everything but interestingly christmas in japan starts a month earlier than back home it kicks off on november 1st when all the decorations go up christmas trees candles crap covers of last christmas you can enjoy all that from november 1st but even though the christmas season starts a whole month earlier than it does back home it also ends early as well rather bizarrely it ends on december 26th almost overnight all the decorations and every sign of christmas is removed it's taken down the end result is christmas in japan captures that excitement in the right to christmas day but then boxing day just feels rather hollow and empty it's a bit like having a three-course meal but as you're about to dive into dessert someone chucks a rock at it and [ __ ] it all up but you know what for any criticism i may have of christmas in japan i'm still grateful to have it in some form because you are able to get in the festive spirit despite it being a purely commercial holiday uh where the origins of christianity and the nativity are all stripped away after all jesus never really made it to japan well that is unless you believe the people of shingle village in aomori prefecture where they believe jesus was quite literally laid to rest no i'm not making it up tucked away in the mountains of north japan there's a tomb with a cross and even an impressive stone tablet written in hebrew to commemorate the real resting place of jesus as well as an in-depth story of how and why jesus made this surprising journey honestly it's either the most compelling conspiracy in the history of christianity or it's a shitty pr stunt that went a little bit too far uh and i'm inclined to believe it's the latter but i'm not here to judge you decide in the comments below uh all i know is when i covered it in a video a few years ago an australian newspaper referred to me as an alternate theorist which is a title i never knew i wanted but in the absence of jesus the closest thing japan has to a divine spiritual figurehead for the festive season is an individual of great power and great wisdom and i am of course talking about colonel sanders and for once i'm really not exaggerating when december 25th rolls around colonel sanders is essentially jesus christ and father christmas rolled into one when 3.6 million japanese families sit down to eat a kfc christmas dinner which perhaps unsurprisingly is exactly what i did this christmas [Music] the kfc christmas menu is a big deal for kfc said to make up a third of kfc japan's yearly sales which is completely believable given you need to reserve it almost a month in advance in order to secure the premium christmas menu the festive tradition kicked off in 1974 when a kfc manager allegedly heard an expat claim that chicken was the next best option after turkey a meat which isn't commonly sold in japan kfc marketed their chicken party bucket as a delicious alternative with the slogan kentucky christmas literally kentucky is christmas the luxurious feast doesn't come cheap though at around four thousand yen about forty dollars though you do get a lot of bang for your buck including a party box packed with eight pieces of chicken a triple berry tiramisu and a shrimp gratin thrown in for extra measure for the real big spenders you can even snag an entire premium roast chicken which costs a whopping 5 600 yen about 56 but seeing as natsuki isn't a big spender this year we did without it's such a weird like array of dishes and food kfc chicken a christmas cake and a gratin all laird under what's going on do you want it merry christmas merry christmas so happy christmas grace is over cold been over maybe oh we're not quite that scared for today while i'll admit the kfc christmas menu is no match for a full-blown christmas dinner it's still a fun way to celebrate the christmas season i'm sure colonel sanders would be proud and undeniably surprised to see how his finger-licking good food has somehow become a beloved japanese tradition so the main reason i avoid christmas in japan is i always think back to my first christmas that i spent here back when i was an english teacher working at a senior high school or be an empty senior high school because on christmas day in japan there are no students they've all gone home for the holiday season however because christmas isn't a national holiday in japan i still had to go into work i sat at my desk and did nothing all day on christmas worse still the entire staff room was empty i worked with 120 teachers now those 120 teachers only about four of them actually stayed around and did something while the rest took their annual leave in the run-up to the new year's holiday so what that meant was i was sitting in a staff room alone just sort of doing doing nothing on christmas day i was very stubborn i didn't want to use my few days of holiday leave i wanted to cling on to it like the final hand grenade for a special occasion after wasting the day away at my desk i trudged through the afternoon blizzard and i just i remember i fell over in some snow and that was that was a real low point i remember laying there in a pile of snow frozen to death while my phone was bombarded with messages from friends and family around the world eating turkey having fun opening presents i cursed the day that i stayed in japan for christmas and did nothing [Music] to be fair i only had myself to blame most of my uh foreign colleagues had either gone home for christmas or going skiing for the week uh i was just a little bit stupid you know the absence of family and friends and a good christmas dinner is one thing but there's all the other things you take for granted at christmas you know sitting down to watch tv watch another remake of a christmas carol or a rerun of die hard or sitting in a pub with a glass of mulled wine all those things it took moving to japan to make me realize that there was far more to christmas than just christmas day itself and while my favorite bit of christmas is actually those relaxing days in between christmas and new years where you can sit down and play with your train set and open your buzz lightyear toy meanwhile in japan though far from being relaxing in those days after christmas the whole country suddenly gets very busy and chaotic and turns into a nightmare [Music] there are a few things scarier than going to an atm and discovering that it doesn't dispense any cash especially in a country where cash is king and credit cards still don't often work but that is exactly what happens over the new year's holiday in japan where families across the country enjoy a rare get-together and for a short time the country shuts down during new year's families in japan descend on temples and shrines to pray for good luck in an event called hatsumode literally the first shrine visit and if you're into that aspect of japanese culture it can be a rewarding experience to visit the country and take part and pray for your own good luck but if not i would genuinely advise you not to visit the country between december 25th and january 5th because traveling is anything but fun whether it's queuing outside one of the few restaurants that are still open standing for two hours on an overcrowded shinkansen or wondering how you're gonna pay for it all because the atms don't work between december 29th and january 3rd and for the three years that i've been in japan for new year's i've forgotten this every single time and had to beg for money from my unamused friends i mean this time this year again i have forgotten and i've got uh five i've got about a thousand one thousand and eleven yen which is enough to buy like four kitkats um for the next few days still if the worst comes to the worst i could always pawn off some items i think there's enough here to maybe buy me maybe four or five breadcrumbs so there you have it christmas in japan it's not really that bad is it and i mean the kfc christmas bucket while it's no substitute for a real christmas dinner and as long as father christmas doesn't bring you a carcinogenic bathmat japan is still one of the better non-christian countries to be in if you want to get in the christmas spirit you know what 2020 not a great year but we still do get to do some amazing things here and i wanted to end this video with a montage of some of the highlights and best moments from 2020 here on the everyone japan channel but for now guys as always for more behind the scenes videos check out the abroad japan patreon in the description box below and on behalf of myself natsuki ryotaro p donaldson from the podcast and now ken watanabe himself i'd like to wish you all a very merry christmas and a happy new year roll the tape welcome to my house [Music] this is right that's not a green screen if i can reach out i can touch it i can touch it oh thank god please please shut up oh my god this is like a first person horror game that i don't want to be in you think you're better than me will you go for it you can't [ __ ] hot sauce [Music] muffins and crumpets yes and scones bye

Channel: Abroad in Japan

Views: 1,910,220

Keywords: christmas japan, kfc japan, kfc christmas japan, abroad in japan, trash taste, trash taste podcast, journey across japan

Id: Pp6ggz_uwWE

Length: 16min 1sec (961 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 30 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Hexia_]

Chris I want to make a poster for you of Journey Across Japan or Natsuki The Movie sequel! How can I contact you?

https://twitter.com/EchoLotus1/status/1342339559070322689/photo/1