ah christmas my favorite time of year there we go
perfect we all love it for different reasons family food jesus as for me i like it because
of the presence to get the presents that i so sorely deserve i like to mock beneath the
christmas tree the night before christmas and guess what's inside each and every box
this year though my christmas eve was rather stressful when i opened my phone to reveal some
some pretty worrying news instead of getting a jovial man burst down my chimney i received a
news alert informing me that my beloved bathmat that i've been using every day for two years now
is actually filled with asbestos the toxic fiber known to cause lung cancer asbestos heavy bath mat
yeah on the second day of christmas my true love gave to me a bathmat filled with asbestos and a
partridge in a pear tree doesn't really work does it doesn't really fit the sort of upbeat
christmas narrative yes rather embarrassingly it turns out one of japan's biggest retailers sold
2.4 million items manufactured in a dodgy factory in china where they tried to cut costs by stuffing
various household items full of asbestos and if you know the correct way to dispose of asbestos
please leave a comment below help because i don't really know what to do i mean i could do in a
broad japan christmas giveaway could be rather good no actually it's probably not a good idea
but to be fair in a year where absolutely everything went wrong it seemed like a fitting
end to the year seemed like a fitting end to 2020 to get a visit from the ghost of christmas
asbestos now for the past eight years that i've lived in japan i've actually only been here for
three christmases typically i flee to the uk to stuff myself full of mulled wine and cheese but
with everything going on in the world i couldn't do that this year and there are many reasons that
i avoid christmas in japan like a lot of foreign residents that i know living here so in this video
i thought i'd answer some key questions number one what's it like to have christmas in japan number
two why do i avoid it and number three why do i recommend not visiting the country between late
december and early january for some pretty big reasons which i'll get into in a minute but before
that you might be wondering what father christmas did actually bring me this year in between
bath mats filled with cancer and i did actually receive some pretty amazing things and some
not so amazing things as well but we'll start with the good stuff and my first thing is this
cd projekt red the makers of cyberpunk 2077 uh send me a collector's edition of the game in this
gigantic box because it turns out some of the team at cd projekt red actually watch abroad in japan
how awesome is that and i look forward to playing that on my imaginary playstation 5 when it arrives
sometime in the next 10 years because right now not even god can get a hold of a playstation 5. i
do have a playstation 4 but i want to wait until the glitches and performance issues have been
ironed out so i could play it the way it was meant to be played so thank you to cd projekt red for my
favorite christmas present the second present well it couldn't be any more different you might be
aware that here on the abroad japan channel we've tried and failed miserably to uh get ken watanabe
japan's number one actor to feature on the show for some years now fantastic actor you might have
seen him in inception godzilla or the last samurai however my pursuit of him has been so ruthless so
obsessive and disturbing that i suspect any chances of ever getting him on the show are pretty
much gone by now but fortunately this christmas an incredible viewer sent the next best thing uh
which is of course [ __ ] up a life-size cardboard cutout of the man himself there he is ken watanabe
in the flesh in the cardboard and i look forward to finding a use for ken sometime in 2021 most
likely to uh scare children right let's just put him over here in the background good old ken there
you go actually it looks really looks really quite disturbing let's just not do that you can go over
there ken right present number three we're now going into not so good present territory i think
that might be an understatement this is white musk uh air freshener it has this rather troubling
english on the front that says uh john's blend hang it in a closet a bedroom entrance doorknob
etc john's proud aroma will spread in your room john's proud aroma will spread in your room what
a disgrace who is john why is he so proud of his aroma what does it actually smell like
oh god [ __ ] it smells like cigarettes apples and despair i don't know what john was thinking
i don't know why he's proud of that and finally firmly at the bottom of my list quite comfortably
is this pen shaped like a carrot might just be the worst christmas present of all time from a now
former friend and it says here in big letters fresh veggie pen these look so real veggies
look so real veggies but they are pens the veggie pen would be a very fun gift item would it it's
hard to imagine why someone felt this was an appropriate gift item an item so unimaginably
[ __ ] that it's practically begging for somebody to buy it as a gift um and there you go a carrot
like a pen clearly no expense spared there i'm starting to think the asbestos bath map would make
a better gift than this so how does japan celebrate christmas does it celebrate
christmas at all well even though roughly one percent of japan's population claims to
be christian and december 25th is not a public holiday the christmas season does still exist
in a rather bastardized commercialized form in fact on the surface it almost looks like christmas
back home in europe or north america you've got the decorations the music the christmas trees
the kfc bucket all right maybe not everything but interestingly christmas in japan starts a
month earlier than back home it kicks off on november 1st when all the decorations go up
christmas trees candles crap covers of last christmas you can enjoy all that from november 1st
but even though the christmas season starts a whole month earlier than it does back home it also
ends early as well rather bizarrely it ends on december 26th almost overnight all the decorations
and every sign of christmas is removed it's taken down the end result is christmas in japan captures
that excitement in the right to christmas day but then boxing day just feels rather hollow and empty
it's a bit like having a three-course meal but as you're about to dive into dessert someone chucks
a rock at it and [ __ ] it all up but you know what for any criticism i may have of christmas in
japan i'm still grateful to have it in some form because you are able to get in the festive spirit
despite it being a purely commercial holiday uh where the origins of christianity and the
nativity are all stripped away after all jesus never really made it to japan well that is
unless you believe the people of shingle village and elmore prefecture where they believe jesus
was quite literally laid to rest no i'm not making it up tucked away in the mountains of north japan
there's a tomb with a cross and even an impressive stone tablet written in hebrew to commemorate the
real resting place of jesus as well as an in-depth story of how and why jesus made this surprising
journey honestly it's either the most compelling conspiracy in the history of christianity or it's
a shitty pr stunt that went a little bit too far uh and i'm inclined to believe it's the latter but
i'm not here to judge you decide in the comments below uh all i know is when i covered it in a
video a few years ago an australian newspaper referred to me as an alternate theorist which
is a title i never knew i wanted but in the absence of jesus the closest thing japan has
to a divine spiritual figurehead for the festive season is an individual of great power and great
wisdom and i am of course talking about colonel sanders and for once i'm really not exaggerating
when december 25th rolls around colonel sanders is essentially jesus christ and father christmas
rolled into one when 3.6 million japanese families sit down to eat a kfc christmas dinner which
perhaps unsurprisingly is exactly what i did this christmas the kfc christmas menu is a big deal for
kfc said to make up a third of kfc japan's yearly sales which is completely believable given you
need to reserve it almost a month in advance in order to secure the premium christmas menu
the festive tradition kicked off in 1974 when a kfc manager allegedly heard an expat claim that
chicken was the next best option after turkey a meat which isn't commonly sold in japan kfc
marketed their chicken party bucket as a delicious alternative with the slogan kentucky christmas
literally kentucky is christmas the luxurious feast doesn't come cheap though at around four
thousand yen about forty dollars though you do get a lot of bang for your buck including a party
box packed with eight pieces of chicken a triple berry tiramisu and a shrimp gratin thrown in for
extra measure for the real big spenders you can even snag an entire premium roast chicken which
costs a whopping 5 600 yen about 56 but seeing as natsuki isn't a big spender this year we did
without it's such a weird like array of dishes and food kfc chicken a christmas cake and a gratin
all laird under what's going on do you want it merry christmas merry christmas so happy christmas
grace is over cold been over
maybe oh we're not quite that scared for today while i'll admit the kfc christmas
menu is no match for a full-blown christmas dinner it's still a fun way to celebrate the
christmas season i'm sure colonel sanders would be proud and undeniably surprised
to see how his finger-licking good food has somehow become a beloved japanese tradition
so the main reason i avoid christmas in japan is i always think back to my first christmas
that i spent here back when i was an english teacher working at a senior high school it'll be
an empty senior high school because on christmas day in japan there are no students they've all
gone home for the holiday season however because christmas isn't a national holiday in japan
i still had to go into work i sat at my desk and did nothing all day on christmas worse still the
entire staff from was empty i worked with 120 teachers now those 120 teachers only about four
of them actually stayed around and did something while the rest took their annual leave in the
run-up to the new year's holiday so what that meant was i was sitting in a staff room alone
just sort of doing doing nothing uh on christmas day i was very stubborn i didn't want to use my
few days of holiday leave i wanted to cling on to it like the final hand grenade for a special
occasion after wasting the day away at my desk i trudged through the afternoon blizzard and i just
remember i fell over in some snow and that was that was a real low point i remember laying there
in a pile of snow frozen to death while my phone was bombarded with messages
from friends and family around the world eating turkey having fun opening presents
i cursed the day i stayed in japan for christmas and did nothing
to be fair i only had myself to blame most of my uh foreign colleagues had either gone home
for christmas or going skiing for the week uh i was just a little bit stupid you know the absence
of family and friends and a good christmas dinner is one thing but there's all the other things you
take for granted at christmas you know sitting down to watch tv watch another remake of a
christmas carol or a rerun of die hard or sitting in a pub with a glass of mulled wine all those
things it took moving to japan to make me realize that there was far more to christmas than just
christmas day itself and while my favorite bit of christmas is actually those relaxing days in
between christmas and new years where you can sit down and play with your train set and open
your buzz lightyear toy meanwhile in japan though far from being relaxing in those days
after christmas the whole country suddenly gets very busy and chaotic and turns into a nightmare
there are a few things scarier than going to an atm and discovering that it doesn't dispense
any cash especially in a country where cash is king and credit cards still don't often work but
that is exactly what happens over the new year's holiday in japan where families across the country
enjoy a rare get-together and for a short time the country shuts down during new year's families in
japan descend on temples and shrines to pray for good luck in an event called hatsumode literally
the first shrine visit and if you're into that aspect of japanese culture it can be a rewarding
experience to visit the country and take part pray for your own good luck but if not i would
genuinely advise you not to visit the country between december 25th and january 5th because
traveling is anything but fun whether it's queuing outside one of the few restaurants
that are still open standing for two hours on an overcrowded shinkansen or wondering how you're
gonna pay for it all because the atms don't work between december 29th and january 3rd and for the
three years that i've been in japan for new year's i've forgotten this every single time and had to
beg for money from my unamused friends i mean this time this year again i have forgotten and i've got
uh five i've got about a thousand one thousand and eleven yen which is enough to buy
like four kitkats um for the next few days still if the worst comes to the worst i could always
pawn off some items i think there's enough here to maybe buy me uh maybe four or five
breadcrumbs so there you have it christmas in japan it's not really that bad is it and i mean
the kfc christmas bucket while it's no substitute for a real christmas dinner
and as long as father christmas doesn't bring you a carcinogenic bathmat japan is still one
of the better non-christian countries to be in if you want to get in the christmas spirit
you know what 2020 not a great year but we still do get to do some amazing things here
and i wanted to end this video with a montage of some of the highlights and best moments from
2020 here on the everyone japan channel but for now guys as always for more behind the scenes
videos check out the abroad japan patreon in the description box below and on behalf
of myself natsuki ryotaro pete donaldson from the podcast and now ken watanabe himself i'd
like to wish you all a very merry christmas and a happy new year roll the tape welcome to my house
this is
right that's not a green screen look i can reach out i can touch it i can touch it
this is like a first person horror game that i don't want to be in you
think you're better than me will you go for it you can't
hot sauce
kanpai cheers cheers
bye natsuki bye