Happy Halloween! It’s finally here… the day it seems our family (well, at least my daughter) has been anxiously anticipating for months. The house is decorated. The treats are made. The costumes are ready. In just a few hours, ghosts, ghouls, pumpkins and princesses will take to the streets here in the United States, but have you ever wondered what the holiday is like in other parts of the world?
In Japan, 2006, marks the first year Halloween will be celebrated throughout the entire the land of the rising sun. Little known two decades ago, Halloween is now becoming a business owners dream. Florists in Tokyo are now selling pumpkins, shopping arcades are decked out with paper jack o’ lanterns — and even local pet shops are getting in on the act by offering black-and-orange costumes for dogs.
In Japan, Halloween has always been known as an American holiday and few Japanese know much about its origins. To most Japanese, Halloween, like Christmas, has no ties to religion—it’s merely a promotion for florists and candy stores. However, interestingly, Halloween’s roots in All Hallow’s Eve — the day before All Saint’s day, which commemorates the death of Christian martyrs — resembles a traditional Japanese Buddhist holiday known as Obon. The traditional Japanese holiday is celebrated for three days in August when Japanese spirits are believed to return to earth. It is a solemn time when families visit cemeteries to honor their ancestors.
As for the American version of Halloween, well, not surprisingly, most people trace the infusion of it into Japanese culture to the 1983 opening of Tokyo Disneyland. That was the same year a Tokyo toy store sponsored the first “Harajuku Pumpkin Parade,” now an annual event in Tokyo. When it was first introduced at Tokyo Disneyland, Halloween was a one-day event, since most Japanese didn’t really get the idea. This year, though, Tokyo Disneyland began its daily Halloween parade on September 12th, three days before Disney World in Florida. Thousands of Japanese packed the park to scream and shout as skeletons and Disney characters dressed in Halloween costumes posed for pictures with visitors. In addition, vendors sold Halloween treats with a Japanese twist: sweets made from pumpkin and sweet red bean paste.
However, outside of Disney’s walls the number of Japanese marking Halloween is still tiny and few participate in the American custom of trick-or-treating. But, awareness of the holiday is growing. A recent survey showed some three-fourths of Japanese had heard of the holiday.
How is the holiday celebrated in your corner of the world?
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