Japan’s Unique Christmas Magic: A Celebration of Lights, Love and Fried Chicken. Why has a Shinto-Buddhist country become such a famous destination for Christmas celebrations?
This joyous occasion is celebrated with Sponge cake, Japanese sponge cake is immensely famous and known to the world, people in Japan say”Everybody who grew up in Japan, on Christmas Day always had the cake”.
Fried chicken is also a must on Christmas Eve, most precisely KFC, Kentucky Fried chicken was introduced to the Japanese market and was marketed well to consume it well during this occasion as one of the Christmas foods in the 1970s, and the strategy stuck well, the Western World celebrated it with a turkey but the Japanese went with fried chicken. It was introduced into the market in the early 1970s, In one Colonel Sanders himself dressed up as Santa Claus in one of the ad campaigns in 1974. KFC is known as Kentucky in Japan that’s how people there call it, it’s also said that Colonel Sanders is more popular than Santa Claus in Japan. During the time of Christmas, KFC Japan estimates around 3 to 4 million families, who eat the Kentucky Chicken each Christmas. Japanese people have a tough work culture, Christmas gives them time to rest and they don’t want to spend their time baking heavy meats like pork, beef, or turkey, nor do they own an oven to do so.
Another thing associated with Christmas in Japan is their fruit-infused cakes with strawberries with whipping creams, unlike the alcohol-infused cakes in the West. It began in the 20th century as they wanted to celebrate it with the color of their flag, where there is whipping cream and strawberries placed above it in the middle of the cake to represent the culture.
The origin of Japanese Christmas, Christianity spread in Japan in the 1500s when the Portuguese Catholic missionaries arrived in the archipelago, however, due to severe persecution it was banned for around 250 years. Since the 19th century, Japan began to import and export goods from the West, Dr. Natsuko Akagawa, who is a professor of Asian Societal studies who grew up in Kobe, said “In the postwar period, with the rapid economic boom, is really the time when people start celebrating Christmas”, however, there are less than 2 million Christians in Japan which is just over 1 percent of their entire population, Japan is the least religious country of the world, Therefore Christmas is more of a secular celebration which is for a reason to spend time in an occasion, than a celebration involving the Jesus Christ.
However, singles celebrate Christmas as a form of Valentine, they spend their evening investing their time in dinner dates as the snow falls under the illuminating lights. It’s believed that on Christmas Eve nobody should eat their food alone. It’s a time of the year when people want to rest as it is a country with a hectic work culture, when they spend time with their loved ones, although Japan’s biggest holiday is the New Year.
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