My Lonely Christmas in Japan

Winter
Last year we didn’t get any snow until January. This year we’ve had quite a lot of snow already. According to the locals it is a 50-year record snowfall for December.

At the elementary school especially I’ve been playing in the snow with the kids a lot. I’m brushing up on the new vocabulary I learned last year, re-learning the Japanese words for “snow fort” “snow man” and “snowball fight”.

I’m also re-learning that I have no aim. When I go out onto the playground, I become a huge target for all the kids to throw snowballs at and I, for the life of me, can not seem to hit one of the little buggers with my terrible aim. I resort instead to tackling the kids. It’s pretty exhausting when it’s everyone against me. And I tackled a 3rd grade boy too hard last week and made him cry. I felt pretty bad about that.

Driving has become a bit more of an adventure (remember my post about no snow-plows in Japan). However, in contrast to the busing culture of the states, all the kids here either walk or bike to school, so they don’t call snow days quite as quick as they do back home. We did have one two-hour delay though, and another day where we sent the kids home two hours earlier. None of this really matters for me though because the teachers still keep to their normal hours no matter what the weather. Even when all the classes were cancelled because of the typhoon, we all still had to come in and sit at our desks.

However the teachers “Bounenkai party” was cancelled last week. “Bounenkai” literally translates as “forget the year party”. Lots of sake and alcohol are used to aid in this noble endeavor. To us it may seem like just debauchery, but it’s a tremendously important part any Japanese work place. They believe the only time you truly bond with co-workers is when you are drinking with them.

I couldn’t believe they cancelled the party. Don’t get me wrong, I was partly relieved at the same time, but it is such an important part of the Japanese work place I didn’t think they were allowed to cancel it.

Christmas
As I wrote last year Christmas, at least on a superficial level, seems to be really catching on in Japan. All the stores play sappy Christmas music, and you see Christmas trees and holiday decorations everywhere. Did I mention how much I hate Christmas music? Even in Japan you can’t get away from it.

Friday the 23rd was a national holiday because of the emperor’s birthday, so we had a nice 3-day weekend. And then everybody comes back for one last day of school on the 26th, before Winter break starts. It’s really a waste. I had this nice long 3-day weekend, but I couldn’t take off and leave Japan yet because I’ve got one last day of school on the 26th. They deliberately make the holidays inconvenient like this because they don’t want the students having too much free time at once and getting into trouble. Not kidding.

But I suppose with all the school holidays I get, I really can’t complain. And what’s more, after Christmas the ticket prices suddenly become a lot more reasonable. I’m can use frequent flier miles to get home because I fly out on the 27th.

Because my school gets out later than most, my JET friends had already taken off on vacation by the time Christmas weekend came around. In the weeks leading up to Christmas however we had several small Christmas parties, and those were a lot of fun.

On the emperor’s birthday I went out to eat with a Japanese friend, and then she took me to see the Christmas lights at a local park. We listened to a Japanese lady on the stage murder a number of Christmas songs, and had a good laugh about it. It started sleeting snow/rain later in the evening, so we found a coffee shop and where we were nice and warm but could watch the snow fall through the windows. That was a really good day.

But Christmas eve and Christmas itself there was absolutely no one around. I went to the library, returned all my overdue books, went to Starbucks with the new books I checked out, and spent the evening talking to a couple guys I barely knew in the local foreign bar.

Christmas in Japan has somehow evolved into a romantic “Valentine’s” type holiday. I hate those types of holidays. The only reason they exist is to make you feel bad. If you don’t have a girlfriend you spend the whole day feeling depressed and lonely. And if you do have a girlfriend, then you’re under some tremendous sort of pressure to create the most expensive romantic night ever.

With no girl friend in Gifu, I fell into the former category this year. I saw couples everywhere I went, but wandered around with just my books to keep me company. Pretty depressing Christmas really.

Link of the Day
some (post) Christmas thoughts:
The story goes that when the nonviolent Jesus was born into abject poverty to homeless refugees on the outskirts of a brutal empire, angels appeared in the sky to impoverished shepherds singing, "Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth!" That child grew up to become, in Gandhi's words, "the greatest nonviolent resister in the history of the world," and was subsequently executed by the empire for his insistence on justice.

This weekend, as tens of millions of Christians across the country celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, the US wages war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia and elsewhere; crushes the hungry, homeless, elderly, imprisoned and refugee; and maintains the world's ultimate terrorist threat - its nuclear arsenal.