Japanese Culture 101: Christmas Traditions
With Christmas swiftly closing in and Japanese Culture Thursday stretching before me, I began wondering. How do the Japanese celebrate Christmas? The answer is, of course, they don’t. 84% of Japanese people profess to believe in both Shinto and Buddhist precepts, whereas less than 1% of the population practices Christianity. I still have a hard time believing our western culture hasn’t rubbed off at least a little on the Japanese, though. So, I ran a Google search for Japanese Christmas traditions, and came up with some interesting results:
- Merry Christmas is said, “Kurisumasu Omedeto.” Happy New Year (a much bigger holiday in Japan) is “Shinnen Omedeto.”
the West as well: Christmas. Although St. Francis Xavier, a Spanish Jesuit missionary, brought Santa Cross Christianity to Japan in 1549, the celebration of Christmas was mostly limited to churches and missionary schools until the 20th century. (Indeed, Christianity was outlawed in Japan after a religious uprising in 1639 and henceforth practiced only clandestinely until 1854.) The exchanging of gifts at Christmastime by Japanese families began in a small way early this century, and Japanese stores began offering Christmas sales in the 1930s. Starting with the American occupation of Japan in 1945, Christianity enjoyed a brief surge in popularity, and Christmas took off in a big (and commercialized) way.
