what Christmas is REALLY like in Japan

はい、 カ ット の キ ー ス 聞 こ えて ください。 来

場 者 の 皆 様 は。 That

was a little short video that I took in

2017 in Japan when it was Christmas,

and it was the first Christmas I spent in

Japan. 2018-2019 Christmas

I spent in England, and I thought I'd just

make a little video talking about what

Christmas was like in Japan. So they have

these things called illuminations, and

it's when they decorate the whole street

with these glowing light-up decorations,

I guess you'd call them. I don't really

know what it is. It's just a load of fancy

lights and the whole street gets decorated

like this and you march down the street in

a crowd.

After walking around a bit in the crowd

looking at the illuminations, there was

finally some kind of eating area where

they had all of these food stalls.

Hey, Daniel. Oh, good job! Come here.

Hey,

Daniel.

Hi.

Usually back home in England when it's

Christmas, I used to have a goose or a

turkey, but Japanese people don't really

have goose, but they were selling turkey,

so we got some turkey. But the problem

with this turkey was they didn't roast it.

It was smoked cured turkey.

They basically made the turkey in the same

way you would make a ham. It was probably

the worst turkey I had ever eaten. It

didn't even taste anything like a turkey.

It didn't taste like a chicken or any kind

of bird meat. It just tasted like ham,

but it was in the shape of a chicken

drumstick on a bone. It was really weird.

It was kind of like they just got a bone

and then molded some ham around it and

then made it look like a turkey drumstick.

It was very weird. I didn't like it at

all. We also had wine, red wine, and I was

really thirsty after eating my ham turkey

and I just gulped down the entire glass of

wine like it was orange juice. And that

was the worst idea ever. I had such a bad

headache. After drinking that wine really

quickly, and I felt like I was gonna

collapse. The whole room was spinning

round and round. Christmas has always been

a special time for me ever since I was a

kid. I was really addicted to video games,

and as a kid, I didn't really have any

money, and video games were very

expensive. The only way I could get new

video games was either on my birthday or

on Christmas. My mum allowed me to have 2

new video games, £40 each,

and then a third game that was maybe an

older game or a secondhand game for about

£20. So I could get a total of 3 new games

for Christmas. And up until Christmas, I

would be planning during the whole year,

I'd be planning which games I wanted for

Christmas. Usually I would get the new GTA

game or some kind of new WWF wrestling

game. I was really into wrestling when I

was a teenager and it was really exciting

when Christmas got nearer and nearer.

On Christmas Day, I would get so excited.

I would always wake up really, really

early, maybe 6 a.m. in the morning. And my

dad didn't really like this because he was

still sleeping. He didn't want to get

woken up by me and my sister. So he said

to me and my sister, no going downstairs

and opening presents before I wake up. So

we had to wait until my dad woke up and My

mum used to prepare stockings, Christmas

stockings, a big red sock, and she would

put things in it like a Lego set, video

game magazines for me, chocolates,

oranges, little games. And she would—

either she or my dad would hang them on

the outside of my bedroom door and my

sister's bedroom door. And when me

and my sister woke up really early in the

morning, first thing we would do would be

we would take the Christmas stocking And

my sister would come into my room with her

Christmas stocking. And then we would mess

around with the Christmas stockings in my

bedroom until my dad woke up. And then

around 8 a.m., my dad would finally wake

up. And we knew this because we could hear

the buzzing sound of his electric shaver

as he shaved his beard. And then we could

hear him going down the stairs and he

would start making his morning cup of tea

and getting his cornflakes ready. And then

me and my sister would run downstairs to

start opening presents. I always knew

exactly what I was getting because I would

ask my mum for the games and I would tell

her which games I wanted. So I would just

open my games and then I'd rush back up to

my bedroom and then I'd play my new video

games until about 2 p.m. or 3 p.m., which

is when we would have Christmas lunch and

my mum would usually make either a roast

turkey or a roast goose. And then there'd

be roast potatoes and bacon wrapped around

sausages. Brussels sprouts, carrots,

parsnips, you know, the traditional stuff

you'd have on Christmas Day. And when I

was in Japan, I kind of missed this. I

missed that kind of food. Japan usually

just has chicken for Christmas. There's

that stereotype of Japanese people having

KFC, and it is kind of true,

but not completely true, because all

around the supermarkets they'll be selling

their own special Christmas chicken and it

just tastes like normal chicken, just like

normal fried or roast chicken that you

could have any time of the year. It didn't

really feel special. Christmas dinner,

Christmas lunch was special because you

would have a turkey or goose, which is

something you wouldn't usually have any

other time during the year. And they just

didn't really have this kind of food.

Roast potatoes? No way. You don't even

have ovens in Japanese homes. How are you

going to make a roast potato or a roast

turkey or roast parsnips with bacon

wrapped around the sausage? They don't

even have normal bacon. The idea of bacon

was basically just thin pieces of ham and

they had the nerve to call it bacon. I'm

sorry, but the whole bacon thing in Japan

still really grinds my gears. And for

Christmas lunch, we would also have

crackers and wear the silly little

colorful Christmas hat. After finishing

eating, I would go back up to my room and

spend the rest of the day playing my new

video games, and I would just be

completely fixated on my new video games

and I wouldn't be interested in just

sitting downstairs. With my family because

that would be boring. I don't really know

what my sister did. I guess she had

presents as well. I don't really remember

what kind of presents she used to get.

Maybe like a dollhouse or something like

that. It was kind of strange being away

from my family and my home when I first

had my first Christmas in Japan. Felt like

something was kind of missing. Felt like

it wasn't really Christmas. I don't know

if it's normal for Japanese families to

decorate the house with a Christmas tree

and lights and stuff like that. Because

usually in England, my mum would set up

the Christmas tree and then we had all of

these little trinkets and baubles to hang

on the Christmas tree and tinsel and fairy

lights. And we'd always set that up for a

few weeks, maybe in the beginning of

December, and then a couple of days after

Christmas it would be taken down. And I

always felt sad when the decorations got

taken down. When I was in Japan in 2017

for Christmas, we bought a very tiny

Christmas tree and we decorated that. It

was kind of cute, very small, but I

guess you can't really— well, you could,

but it would be a bit troublesome having a

massive tree, and it was always kept in

the attic of our house. My dad would go up

there with his ladder, bring it down, And

then we would all help to set the tree up

and decorate it. It was kind of like a

family activity. This Christmas, I'll

probably be spending it in the Netherlands

since I have a contract for this

apartment. It'd be kind of stupid to rent

out this apartment and pay all this money

and then go back home to England and then

have to come back here. It'd be really

weird if I went back to England. I think

I'd want to stay and not just stay there

for a couple weeks and then come back to

this apartment with these noisy bloody

neighbors who are just having some kind of

argument right now outside the entrance,

and they make so much noise stomping up

and down the stairs, running up and down

up there. It's like they don't even

realize that there's someone living below

them. Either they don't realize or they

don't care. Just— I don't know how some

people can just have no self-awareness of

how annoying they're being.