ハロウィーン

Halloween isn't celebrated in Japan. At some of the big department stores there might be "Halloween corners" which have maybe a cheap mask or two and a lot of Nightmare Before Christmas merchandise, but that's about it. Docomo had a Halloween promotion this year, but all it involved was inflating an orange Mickey Mouse pumpkin in front of every store. Restaurants might put a fake cobweb on the wall or something, but that's about as far as the Halloween spirit extends.

Halloween is my favorite holiday, so this makes me very sad.

Some foreigners take over a car on the orange Osaka Loop Line train every year and turn it into an impromptu Halloween party, but it apparently just involved a lot of costumes, beer, and screaming. As a result, it was reportedly banned this year, and police threatened to arrest anyone in costume found on the train (can anyone confirm this?).

There are other less intrusive Halloween celebrations happening in large cities all over Japan, but in my neck of the woods, there wasn't much. So I would simply have to celebrate Halloween all by myself. How hard could it be?

1) Costumes

Halloween just isn't Halloween without a costume, so I decided to dress up to school and spread the spirit. I needed something safe for students (I guess that rules out sexy schoolgirl) and needed something they'd immediately recognize. I ultimately decided on Hermione from Harry Potter. I'm the biggest nerd EVER.

Uniqlo (sort of the Japanese Old Navy/Gap) helped me out with the gray sweater and socks, I got a tie from a 100 yen shop (the Japanese dollar store), and a cape from Loft (the Japanese store of AWESOMENESS). Complete with a "wand" I found outside (a piece of bamboo), my look was complete. I might be the only person dressed up in a 100-mile radius, but at least I was observing the holiday.

Sadly, I have no pictures of my costume. I was too busy dodging elementary school kids who wanted to touch "Harry Potter" to get a picture. Alas.

2) Candy

YES! THIS is where Halloween really shines. I love candy with an unhealthy passion, and was eager to see what sorts of weird Japanese sweets I could find.

Though, as it turns out, Japanese chocolate SUCKS. There are laws here strictly limiting the amount of cocoa butter that can be in chocolate which means that it's all sorta flaky and dry. MMM.

I managed to get some fun-sized (blasphemy!) Crunch bars (tasted like normal Crunch to me) and pumpkin-flavored Kit-Kats at a department store an hour away called--no joke--"Mipple."

Now, I love pumpkin-flavored anything, so was excited about the Kit-Kats. Kit-Kats in Japan come in TONS of flavors like green tea and cherry blossom, so pumpkin wasn't really a stretch. However, these were NASTY. Ugh. Tasted nothing like pumpkin and more like stale, orange cardboard. But I was prepared to give them out anyway.

No kids came to my door, of course, but I was permitted to give out candy at the elementary schools as long as the kids promised to not eat them until they got home. Yeah, right. But the kids agreed, so candy for all! I couldn't give out candy at the middle schools no matter what the kids promised, so I gave out erasers and stickers. Lame, but I didn't have much choice.

I wanted to play a game at the schools where you pass around a bowl filled with peeled grapes or something and tell the kids they're eyeballs, etc., etc. The kids wouldn't actually eat any of the food, and it was a common Halloween game in the states. Perfect, right? When I proposed the idea, all the teachers looked horrified. "That is a waste of food," they said, shaking their heads sadly. "We don't waste in Japan. We're environmentally conscious." Damn. Okay, then. If a food fight ever broke out, the entire student body would probably be expelled.

3) Pumpkins

There aren't many big orange pumpkins around here, so getting one takes a lot of time and money. Since I wasn't interested in wasting either, I decided to try my hand at carving Japanese pumpkins which are small, green, and designed for cooking. I bought two at the local bank/clothing/gardening/convenience store (you know you live in a small town when all that's combined into a single, tiny room) and set to work. I was ambitious at first and wanted to try a bat, but since I had no pumpkin-carving knives and no serrated knives, even, it was really, really difficult. After I finally managed a bat using a dull switchblade (I don't know why it was in my kitchen, I swear), I just made a traditional jack-o-lantern face for the second pumpkin.

Check them out!







The kids next door were really excited when I put these outside, and ran out to watch me light them. However, since it's much warmer here than in the states (it was low to mid-70's), the pumpkins started molding immediately. After a week had gone by, they were black, crumbling, and infested with flies, so it was time to say goodbye. I threw them out on Halloween. I am so ashamed.

***

Other than that, there wasn't much to be done. I considered trying to trick-or-treat, but feared I'd be chased from some old woman's yard with a broom or something. Many of the older generation look at me with undisguised hate/fear, so I didn't want to try my luck. Oddly enough, I'd be more willing to trick-or-treat in the city since people would probably just roll their eyes and tell me to go away. Here, the houses are far apart, and the whole town would know immediately that the foreigner was "trying to break into people's houses" or something. Fun times!