Consumerfest!

"I heard that Christmas isn't really big in Japan. It makes sense because it's not a Christian country," my friend recently commented.

Well, actually, take this: if Christmas were a multinational company like Starbucks Coffee (it might as well be), it would make a good portion of its total annual profit from Japan (Starbucks does). Despite the lack of an apparent Christian culture, Santa-day is a major festival--a consumer festival. Much like in North America, red and green decorations begin to adore the streets, shop windows, staff uniforms, gift wrappings, and whole sides of department stores (the Japanese mall) starting the beginning of November. Baby-faced idols and models--male and female--begin to wear white fluff and Santa costumes and their faces are posted up on pretty much every legitimate building facade. Major downtown areas like Shibuya, Harajuku, and Shinjuku are bright with LCD Christmas lights, and LCD Christmas lights only because a few years ago there was an activist movement that condemned the bright, old-school Christmas lights for their contribution to light pollution and hurting the trees.

At the time I couldn't help but notice that as the night went on, the activists' paper banners condemning Christmas lights could only be recognized via the glow from the neon banners above.

Tokyo is not like Vancouver, in the way that it is unlikely that one would come across any major churches downtown or anywhere else. There are, to be sure, some substantial Christian populations here; believe it or not there are missionaries floating amongst the crowds. But, they are hardly seen. Candle services and masses on Christmas Eve/Day are only attended by the most stringent of Christians. Oh, but you can't forget about the street preachers. These street preachers are holding large white pickets in major downtown areas that say, in black font, such heart-warming stuff like "God knows the truth" "Reconnect with God" and my favorite, "You are a sinner." One or two men are often talking into a megaphone, claiming how sinners will die and those who reconnect with God will live eternally after Judgment Day. They are not shy to insist conversion upon 'sinners' walking by and through them, carrying bags from GAP and Gucci. "Be saved by God," they insist. Most people just laugh.

Christmas is huge here. But unlike in North America, it is very rarely a family occassion, but rather, a couple's occassion. If you're single during these two days, it is just another reason to drink your head off and forget about keeping your liver and kidneys. Families with young kids will most likely do the family version of Christmas, and the aged population will just sit at home and not do much but watch TV, but the majority in between eats, drinks, sings, buys hugely expensive gifts for their partners, and gets laid. People who didn't have sex on Christmas Eve were probably just too drunk or too drugged out to perform. People who didn't do any of that were probably working. Funny country.