Benjamin Hourigan

Today is Christmas…

Being an anti-theistic agnostic, I usually try not to celebrate, but being in Japan has made me kind of nostalgic for the western traditions of home. This morning, my family and I opened our presents together by video-conference. This is very much thanks to Apple and iChat AV, which is the only high-quality video-conferencing application I or anyone I know has ever managed to get working. No thanks, however, to Australia’s pathetic ADSL network. While my family got to enjoy a high-resolution video-feed of me, uploaded at several mbps, I had to live with the blocky feed that the typical Australian 256kbps uplink could serve me.

Anyway, Happy Christmas, everyone. I’ll leave you with the Christmas card I sent my younger brother, which demonstrates just how little Japan seems to exhibit the traditional spirit of either its own culture, or that of the West.

Mini-Santas swarming over the Kamakura Daibutsu.

When I described this card to a British exchange student I met here, we started to rack our brains to come up with a similar, perhaps slightly more blasphemous mix of Japanese culture and Western religious imagery. The product of our wild fancies: Geisha Jesus.

As I’ve seen written here in Japan: “Happy Merry Christmas,” everybody!