Thanksgiving in Japan

The Thanksgiving holiday has come and gone, but the memories of this year’s events will definitely live on. As with most of the “American things” we do here in Japan, celebrating Thanksgiving was not easy. Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Japan, of course, and not many people know when or what it is. November 23 is a Japanese National holiday, translated as Thanksgiving Labor Day. They added the Thanksgiving in there, but it really has nothing to do with Thanksgiving. It is more like our American Labor Day.
Greg absolutely loves Thanksgiving - it is his favorite holiday. Because if this I thought is was important to share the holiday with my students. However, choosing what to teach about Thanksgiving can get kind of sticky. There are several variations on what the real story of the first Thanksgiving is and I wanted to tell the kids what really happened with the Pilgrims and Indians. So I researched on the Internet and found what I thought was the best story, then simplified it way down. So, hopefully they have some idea what Thanksgiving is about.
I actually got a lot of questions about what Americans Indians are like today, like “do they hunt for food?” and “if you see one will they kill you?” I had to try not to laugh, but the only Indians these kids (and teachers) have ever seen have been in texts books and cartoons, which make them out to be savages. I had to explain that for the most part American Indians today live lives that are essentially similar to mainstream Americans.
Ok, back to Thanksgiving. The students had also never seen a turkey before - at least not in real life. So as part of my lesson I taught them a poem about a turkey and brought in a turkey decoration that my parents had sent me. They absolutely loved it. I also taught them the sound a turkey makes “gobble, gobble, gobble”. I had kids gobbling at me for the rest of the week, but they loved it too.
Since the Japanese don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, the traditional foods that go along with the holiday are very hard to find. Turkey, especially, is very expensive and has to be ordered in advance from only certain stores. Even then, it is the size of a chicken. For this reason we had chicken for our meal. Not a whole chicken either, because people don’t have ovens. Whole chickens are difficult to find, so we had chicken breast filets.
We did however manage to get gravy and mashed potatoes, and my big adventure for the day was making an apple pie in the microwave. Don’t be too alarmed - the microwave is not like the ones from the States. This one also acts like an oven, but it is the same size as a normal microwave. The pie turned out quite well for my first attempt.
Greg and I actually celebrated Thanksgiving three times. I had to work on Thanksgiving Day. It was kind of weird because no one knew it was Thanksgiving and it felt like a normal day. Greg tutored in the evening and I went to yoga class. The following morning, Thanksgiving in the U.S., we called our parents and wished them a happy Thanksgiving.
The following day a group of our friends got together to have a Thanksgiving potluck. There were people from Britain, Canada, Australia, Japan, and America, so for most it was their first Thanksgiving. I brought homemade cornbread - also baked in the microwave - and it was a hit. We also had stuffing, pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, macaroni and cheese and a whole chicken. It was a great meal.
We are amazed how quickly the time is moving here. I can’t believe we are getting ready for Christmas now! However, the stores started putting Christmas decorations up before Halloween! I think that is even earlier than in the States. The Japanese do celebrate Christmas at least in some capacity. I’m not sure to what extent yet, but we will soon find out.

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