I had assumed that Halloween wasn't really celebrated in Japan, so imagine my surprise when pumpkin paraphernalia started showing up in stores about six weeks ago. I first noticed it in the imported foods store, then the florist and gift shops, and by now pretty much every store everywhere, including restaurants, have pumpkins and ghosts and orange all over the place. (The spiderweb donuts at Krispy Kreme are really good, btw.)
I immediately quizzed our Japanese teacher about what we should expect in terms of trick-or-treating. She had no idea what I was talking about. She said, "So children come to your house and you have to give them candy to get them to go away?". I told her that pretty much summed it up and she said that it didn't happen here. She also said you couldn't get real pumpkins of carving size, only the tiny ones sometimes. I haven't really seen any decorated houses either.
Oddly enough I
have seen a couple of tiny displays of costumes, mostly Disney stuff. Disney is popular here because there is a Disneyland smack in the middle of Tokyo. Mickey and Minnie do a good job of ingratiating themselves into the more international holidays. I think the costume display I saw was optimistic on the part of the store....after all, Japanese people do love to dress up in costumes.
While on the subject of holidays, I am sad to report that Japanese stores jump the gun just as bad as American stores do---in other words, Christmas has arrived! But I refuse to say more than that until it is at least Thanksgiving. ;)
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| Disney costumage |
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| cactus pumpkins in Cainz |
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| shelves and shelves of cheap junk |
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| Kaldi, the imported foods store (six weeks ago) |
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| spooky pumpkin at the florist |
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