Halloween in Japan part I

Hello, everyone!  It’s been one heck of a weekend filled with candy, costumes, and general Halloween madness.  A lot of people have asked me if Japan celebrates Halloween to which I respond…kind of.  It’s comparable to how Americans celebrate Cinco de Mayo (even though that’s pretty much a made up holiday…).  We know about it, and whenever it’s May 5th, perhaps we look at the calendar and think, today is Cinco de Mayo.  After that thought, we go about our day just like normal.  That’s similar to how the Japanese celebrate Halloween.  They know that it’s an American holiday and some of the traditions behind it, but they don’t really celebrate it.  With that being said, I did see Japanese people celebrating it this weekend.  At both parties I went to, there were Japanese friends there, and on our way through Kumamoto City today, we saw what appeared to be kids dressed up in costumes and trick-or-treating at one of the department stores.  I’m very excited for tomorrow because Ian and I are going to have trick-or-treaters come here!  Students have asked me about it at school, so I know that they know and are excited about it. 

Our Halloween weekend began on Thursday.  I did two of four of my Halloween lessons on Thursday.  I got to dress up as a witch for class, which was amazing.  I wore normal clothes to school and changed right before class.  When I walked into the teacher’s room in my costume and and broom, everyone laughed.  The reaction was even better in the hallway and classroom.  Students just stared at me in the hallway, and whenever I walked into class, there was an unison  “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA???????”  It was funny.  My Halloween lesson consisted of a dialogue between my English teacher and I discussing the main points of Halloween.  After that, I gave out a Halloween word search, and the first two students finished won Halloween prizes.  Yay!

When I got home Thursday night, Ian showed me our wonderful mail collection for the day…..two packages from home!  We are so blessed to have wonderful friends.  Kim sent us a package and told us about it, so we were expecting it.  However, David and Lucy also sent us a package, and it was a complete surprise.  It just so happened that they both arrived on the same day.  It was a magical moment to have two big boxes of Halloween candy, stickers, decorations, cake mix, plates, and napkins to go through.  Thanks again, guys!

Unfortunately, it was Thursday.  I hate, hate, hate Thursday because I have my Thursday night class.  I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s mostly elementary kids, so keeping them entertained for an hour and a half is tough work.  I DREAD Thursday night.  We started Halloween lessons the week before, and last Thursday I had two activities for them.  The first one was pretty successful, and the second one I really don’t even want to think about.  The first project was demonstrating was a jack-o-lantern is and allowing them to make “jack-o-lanterns” with oranges.  They got to draw faces on the oranges, add sequins and pipe cleaners, and whatever else.  It was really cute, and for the most part they did a really good job!  One of my students even gave me his orange.  I felt so special!    The second activity was making costumes.  We brought a bundle of newspapers and pictures of mummies, ghosts, cats, bats, etc and told them that they had to make costumes from newspapers.  At first, it started off okay, but then, being the hyperactive sixth graders that they are, they went crazy.  They started shredding the newspapers, making baseball bats and balls and playing, rolling swords and hitting each other with them, etc.  It took us a whole fifteen minutes to clean up the mess.  I’m pretty sure that the kids somehow managed to make the newspaper multiply.  We walked out with so much more newspaper (or so it seemed!) than what we walked in with.  I often wonder what the kids tell their parents about that class.  I’m sure the parents ask the kids what they did in class, and what do the kids tell their parents?  What do the parents think of me?  I’m very excited about this week because Thursday is a national holiday and therefore a day off of work, meaning that I don’t have night class that day.  Yay!

I’m 11:40PM now, and I’m going to bed.  I’ll write more tomorrow.  It’s been a very long (but fun!) and sleepless weekend!