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Answerman - How Did Christmas in Japan Become A Thing? [2018-12-24]


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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 6680
Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 12:30 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
The one that baffles Americans the most is the ritual of eating fried chicken -- namely KFC -- on December 24th. KFC Japan marketed themselves as a Christmas Eve tradition, and it's caught on in a ridiculous way.

An avuncular, snow-bearded fellow offering bounties from an outlet festooned in red and white? Were it not for our social conditioning, I think even we would struggle to distinguish Kringles from Colonels.
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RegSuzaku



Joined: 08 Jul 2018
Posts: 267
Location: Ikebukuro
PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 12:40 pm Reply with quote
It's... not that different.

Except that cakes and illuminations are a much more formalized thing...

Then again, I lived in what's probably the least Christian part of the Western world (Manhattan) so I wouldn't know what it's like for the rest of America, I guess...

Oh, and there's Japanese lyrics to popular Christmas songs, including secular ones for songs like Silent Night. At an idol show I went to recently, they sang Jingle Bells and some other ones.
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belvadeer





PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 1:28 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Japan has its own Christmas traditions. The one that baffles Americans the most is the ritual of eating fried chicken -- namely KFC -- on December 24th. KFC Japan marketed themselves as a Christmas Eve tradition, and it's caught on in a ridiculous way. In fact, it's their busiest day of the year, and customers are required to book their orders in advance. Amusingly, many Japanese are under the mistaken impression that this is an American tradition as well!


Does anyone know how this bizarre trend actually caught on in the first place?
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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14746
PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 1:38 pm Reply with quote
belvadeer wrote:
Quote:
Japan has its own Christmas traditions. The one that baffles Americans the most is the ritual of eating fried chicken -- namely KFC -- on December 24th. KFC Japan marketed themselves as a Christmas Eve tradition, and it's caught on in a ridiculous way. In fact, it's their busiest day of the year, and customers are required to book their orders in advance. Amusingly, many Japanese are under the mistaken impression that this is an American tradition as well!


Does anyone know how this bizarre trend actually caught on in the first place?


Why do people eat KFC at Christmas in Japan? The short story of how Christmas in Japan become synonymous with a fast food joint.

  • The tradition of eating KFC at Christmas dates back to the early 1970s, when an expat customer at the chain’s Aoyama store observed that, in a land bereft of Yuletide turkey, fried chicken was the next best thing. The store’s canny manager was paying attention and passed word on to the higher-ups, leading the company to launch its ludicrously successful “Kurisumasu ni wa kentakkii!” (“Kentucky for Christmas!”) campaign in 1974. At least, that’s what the company says on its website.

    Or it might just be because Colonel Sanders in a Santa cap looks a whole lot like Santa Claus.


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Roaring Sunset



Joined: 11 Nov 2010
Posts: 8
PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 1:42 pm Reply with quote
"piece on earth"

Yes, it is date night.
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Roaring Sunset



Joined: 11 Nov 2010
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 1:42 pm Reply with quote
"piece on earth"

Yes, it is date night.
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ThrowMeOut



Joined: 10 Oct 2018
Posts: 256
PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 1:44 pm Reply with quote
Man their Christmas sounds so nice. Here in the Americas Christmas has become such a bloated consumerist monstrosity that an evening of fried chicken, cake and maybe a hot date sounds sounds just quaint.
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EricJ2



Joined: 01 Feb 2014
Posts: 4016
PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 1:52 pm Reply with quote
belvadeer wrote:
Quote:
Japan has its own Christmas traditions. The one that baffles Americans the most is the ritual of eating fried chicken -- namely KFC -- on December 24th. KFC Japan marketed themselves as a Christmas Eve tradition, and it's caught on in a ridiculous way. In fact, it's their busiest day of the year, and customers are required to book their orders in advance. Amusingly, many Japanese are under the mistaken impression that this is an American tradition as well!


Does anyone know how this bizarre trend actually caught on in the first place?


Like the "Christmas Date", it's mostly imported Western advertising--
Non-denominational seasonal images of couples snuggling in front of the fireplace made the Japanese think Christmas was "Early Valentines' Day without the chocolates", and KFC's seasonal-pitch ads for "Make Christmas dinner easier with a Family Bucket", for lack of any other cultural context, was taken too literally.
And thanks to overexposed songs and outsourced stop-motion animated specials, Japan doesn't seem to be under the impression that Santa had more than one reindeer, and with an odd natural mutation at that.

As for the "Christmas Cake", that's because no manly male in Japan wants to be seen eating ice-cream or sweet frilly pastries in public any other time of the year, so if it's once a year for tradition, well, that's okay.
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Siegfriedl88



Joined: 22 Jun 2017
Posts: 347
PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 2:04 pm Reply with quote
ThrowMeOut wrote:
Man their Christmas sounds so nice. Here in the Americas Christmas has become such a bloated consumerist monstrosity that an evening of fried chicken, cake and maybe a hot date sounds sounds just quaint.


listening too Linus' speech explaining what Christmas is all about each year puts me in a better mood..i detest black friday and what not, each year...all the stories people getting in fights over material goods, saving just a few bucks bleh
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kinghumanity



Joined: 03 Nov 2014
Posts: 365
PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:20 pm Reply with quote
Not this bs again.

Christmas was not a Christian holiday. It was a Roman pagan holiday called Saturnalia, observed in late December. The Christians just injected their own themes later.

Jesus wasn’t even born on Dec 25. We don’t even know the exact year of his birth, let alone the date; for what we know, he could just as likely been born on July 1.

Quote:
The date of birth of Jesus is not stated in the gospels or in any historical reference, but most theologians assume a date of birth between 6 BC and 4 BC.[1] The historical evidence is too incomplete to allow a definitive dating,[2]
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Blanchimont



Joined: 25 Feb 2012
Posts: 3426
Location: Finland
PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:41 pm Reply with quote
kinghumanity wrote:
Christmas was not a Christian holiday. It was a Roman pagan holiday called Saturnalia, observed in late December. The Christians just injected their own themes later.

Well, if one is hellbent of suppressing a culture for your own, what better way to do it than appropriating one of their holidays as your own. Two birds with one stone. Razz
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ZiharkXVI



Joined: 29 Jan 2009
Posts: 348
PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 3:57 pm Reply with quote
kinghumanity wrote:
Not this bs again.

Christmas was not a Christian holiday. It was a Roman pagan holiday called Saturnalia, observed in late December. The Christians just injected their own themes later.

Jesus wasn’t even born on Dec 25. We don’t even know the exact year of his birth, let alone the date; for what we know, he could just as likely been born on July 1.

Quote:
The date of birth of Jesus is not stated in the gospels or in any historical reference, but most theologians assume a date of birth between 6 BC and 4 BC.[1] The historical evidence is too incomplete to allow a definitive dating,[2]
Um, I think regardless of what it was, it is now a both Christian and secular holiday. Not sure what your point was.
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varmintx



Joined: 31 Jul 2006
Posts: 1197
Location: Covington, KY
PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 5:49 pm Reply with quote
ZiharkXVI wrote:
Um, I think regardless of what it was, it is now a both Christian and secular holiday. Not sure what your point was.

The point was to be needlessly pedantic.
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Northlander



Joined: 10 Feb 2009
Posts: 900
PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 6:19 pm Reply with quote
Japan basically made its own Christmas tradition, and I have a weird sense of respect for that, even if that means most Christmas episodes in anime doesn't really mean much to me personally.
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Ouran High School Dropout



Joined: 28 Jun 2015
Posts: 440
Location: Somewhere in Massachusetts, USA
PostPosted: Mon Dec 24, 2018 6:55 pm Reply with quote
As an old-time fan, my first anime exposure to the KFC-Christmas phenom was in the opening episode of the All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku-Nuku OVA. "...And you can have all the chicken!" An entire bucket for one grade-school kid? Sweet deal--spoiler[that is, if you can set aside the fact that you and your dad are being chased by your psycho-mom's corporate goons, hellbent on recovering the combat android dad stole...]
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