Seán Bulger
Well, I able to experience Christmas as it is held in Japan – well, sort of. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that I celebrated Christmas Eve, as Christmas itself did not seem to be a holiday (but the 24th was). While my host family had the day off on the 24th, they did not on the 25th. I found this to be rather interested, and yet, I cannot help but wonder if the reasoning had something to do with the Japanese apparent enjoyment for having Mondays and/or Fridays off and avoiding vacations in the middle of the work week.Regardless, it was quite fun. A few people came over and there was a six hour long feast amidst a lot of talking and a great time.
As an interesting note, I had a small discussion with one of the guests and my host-brother about my future career goals – that is, community management. Neither of them had heard of the concept of a community manager before, but once I explained it to them (rather eloquently, if I do say so myself!) they were quite taken aback with the concept. Apparently the Japanese are absolutely huge in social networking as well, which while I am not really surprised, I am also very intrigued about. Also, this conversation had a few other interesting points as well, such as Second Life in Japan, and why it isn’t very successful here – which is not to say that there aren’t a lot of Japanese people in Second Life, but why the Japanese do not spend much money in it. The reason? They are only there to chat and meet people, what you can do with the currency is largely irrelevant to them.
Even if the night wasn’t a lot of fun on its own, that little discussion certainly made the entire evening worthwhile.
Oh. And I got a cashmere scarf, given to me by a Japanese woman I had never met before. Strange, but neat!
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