Halloween in Japan
Wednesday October 29, 2008
The Japanese have adopted many Western customs (Christmas, Valentine's Day etc.). Since Halloween was not widely known when I was little, I didn't have any Halloween experiences in my childhood. I liked wearing fancy dresses, just like many other girls, and I would have enjoyed the opportunities to dress up as a princess very much. Halloween is becoming more popular nowadays, probably more for commercial reasons. You see many Halloween candies and chocolates sold at stores. Halloween special events are promoted at Tokyo Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan (in Osaka). Unfortunately, I don't think many people have a chance to make Jack-O-Lanterns (kabocha-chouchin), because the big orange pumpkins in North America are not commonly grown in Japan (though I found some for sale on the Internet!).
Japanese translation
Comments
the pumpkins in japan are really expensive.
is it because of importing them to japan?
compared with the prices where i live the japanese pumpkins cost about 5x more.
ナみこさんへ、
I have met some Japanese working holiday students here in Toronto recently, they also don’t know much about Halloween. We did carve pumpkins with some Japanese, and also went to Halloween parties. I hope they will bring Halloween back to Japan, it was a lot of fun.
hello.
my name is hideto and i’m 17.
now, i have been being in United States for 3 months and i have been going to american high school as a foreign exchange student.
i’ll go back to Japan in next June.
by the way, i’m wondering how japanese is organized.
i can speak English pre well and i have a friend who is gonna go to japan to enter the collge.
so he is studying Japanese now.
therefore, i often teach him japanese but i can’t explain how japanese is organized.
besides, i’m getting interested in japanese in spite of native japanese.haha
would you teach me something about how to learn japanese and how to explain it if you know
i wish you would send me back.
thank you very much.
bye
I’m from Hungary and here pumpkins aren’t so rare.My granny has some in her garden too.If we put them into the oven they became reaaally yummy!
Konnichi wa,
In my town in Gunma, Japan, there is a small group that organises a Halloween parade about a week before Halloween Day. They take a bunch of kids around to trick or treat at houses that have previously volunteered to give out candy. Some of the malls also do a Halloween trick or treat day.
Some parents give their children a small Halloween loot bag full of candy after dinner on Halloween night. A lot of stores also have Halloween decorations up starting at the beginning of October. But Halloween is still very new, so most people don’t really do anything.
Pumpkins can grow in Japan, but they ripen too soon for Halloween. Japan has a warmer climate except Hokkaido where you can grow North American pumpkins just fine!