We're having roast chicken for Christmas

Or, more accurately, I am, because I'm taking Christmas Day and the next day off work.  I have to use paid holidays because Japan isn't the United States and Christmas Day is just another work day where people are counting down to the real holidays, which run around New Year's.  That's fine.  My job offers enough paid days off and they know I'm a foreigner-- although I swear I never told them-- and expect to take a day or two at Christmas.  My wife, being Japanese, is not so lucky but then she doesn't celebrate Christmas, either, so she'll have to wait until her various jobs take their winter break for some time off.

This means I'll be spending the Christmas holidays alone with our Christmas tree, some gifts from home and a roast chicken ordered from Seiyu.  Seiyu is kind of like a Japanese Wal-Mart, so much so they even offer re-usable Wal-Mart shopping bags so you don't have to buy plastic and clog the plastics bin at home, make the trash collectors work an infinitesimal amount of effort harder and ruin the world with toxins and things that don't bio-degrade and all that scientific stuff I have only weird, ill-informed, piecemeal knowledge about.  We're not going into whether or not Wal-Mart has already ruined enough of the earth that this doesn't matter.  The point is, we can get a whole roast chicken for the equivalent of about eight USD.

Still, roast chicken is only a substitute for smoked turkey.  Or even oven-baked turkey.  I'll more than likely make do with yellow chicken tikka for Thanksgiving, but Christmas dinner will be said bird.  It looks from the colorful brochure as if it's coated in some kind of thick, shiny sauce-- which I could just as well do without-- but it will probably serve its purpose and make dinner that night at least a little seasonally festive.

On the Christmas shopping front, there's no such thing as "Black Friday" here.  You know, no Thanksgiving Thursday.  Shopping continues all year round, but things will reach a crescendo before the New Year's holidays.  I'm doing most of my shopping for my wife and family back home online.  It's stress-free, other than the usual "Don't buy me anything" protestations.  We're going to blend our cultures a bit, which excites me.  It means a longer holiday season, so more chances for fun together.  Also, this broadens the number of people I have to shop for.  And there are few things I enjoy more than giving gifts to loved ones.

I forgot to tell you we saw Melt-Banana for Christmas

Yeah, Christmas Day night saw my fiancee and me at Club Asia in Shibuya, just off of Love Hotel Hill (no, we did not go there and check in, you pervs) for Guitar Wolf's 25th anniversary show, with Melt-Banana as one of the opening acts.

How many times had I already seen Melt-Banana?  There were those six that I knew about for sure, close enough for the amps to blow their last breath in my face.  This time they performed as a duo, just Yasuko and Agata, no Rika.  Their website seems to suggest they've always been a duo, with Rika as more or less a helper, but I remember when she seemed an integral part of the unit.  I remember when they had a regular drummer, too, but Rika, as bassist, was right up front, stage right (the left side of the stage for us audience stooges).

With Yako's powerful, white-hooded charisma holding down the center and Agata whirling around in all his masked glory on the right, we relied on Rika to anchor things.  Smallish woman with the huge bass sound, her hair falling in front of her face like Sadako from Ringu at times (at least that's the comparison my students invariably made whenever I showed them photos), sometimes bouncing in place.  With drums and bass synthesized for my seventh time worshiping at the MxBx altar or noise, Yasuko and Agata seemed at times in danger of flying away.

It was one of their most powerful performances.  The last few times I saw them, they were solid but playing short sets in tiny venues seemed to limit their energy.  This show was more reminiscent of the first couple of times I saw them, when I came away dazed and kind of giddy, knowing I'd found my Thing.  But I did miss Rika.  I'm not inside enough to know what she's up to now, why she split.  I wonder if Melt-Banana Lite, the bass-less version of the band, came about because Rika began scaling back on her participation for her own purposes.  These, however, remain a mystery.

Last year was Melt-Banana's 20th as a band, by the way.

Unfortunately, we didn't stay for Guitar Wolf!  While I'm used to dark, smoky venues and edgy crowds, my fiancee wasn't too keen on the scene.  Even wearing an Agata-style mask didn't help protect her against cigarette smoke, which she really doesn't care for at all.  She liked Speeder-X, the first act, and they were a lot of fun.  Just a bass and drums, completely tearing things up sonically.  But by the time Melt-Banana came on, she'd had it with the smoke and was too uncomfortable to enjoy their performance.

I tried to wait around so I could buy some Melt-Banana t-shirts, but they weren't going to sell any until after the headliners and we just couldn't stay any longer.  So no shirts as souvenirs.  I have to give my fiancee lots of credit for sticking it out for as long as she did.  I'm very proud of her.  Choking on smoke is no way to celebrate Christmas.

And trust me, I will happily do anything she wants even if it's not something I'm usually into.  Fair is fair!

Anyway, if you're interested in the two-person Melt-Banana experience, here's a link to a fine photo essay of another recent Rika-less show in which the photographer/essayist comes to grips with noise and Melt-Banana.  I didn't take any photos because Club Asia doesn't permit photography (a few people violated the rules anyway, but I just wanted to be a participant in the moment rather than take a step back and become an observer/recorder).

As for me, I'm already anticipating MxBx show number eight.

You never lack for Christmas cheer in Japan!

I don't know what it is about Christmas, but even in Japan where I believe only about 1% of the population are Christians, you get the full effect of the holiday season.  At least the Santa Claus aspects of it.  If you're inclined, you can supply all the spirituality you want.  Expect lots of Christmas music in stores, holiday displays, greeting cards for sale, colorful lights and, sometimes, even gigantic aluminum Christmas trees, tall and shiny enough to warm even Lucy Van Pelt's crabby heart.

Hamamatsu is no exception.  Sometime in November the Col. Sanders statues at the KFCs suddenly donned Santa costumes and they're all standing proudly in front of their bustling restaurants.  Expect long waits for your fried chicken and cole slaw.  The city workers strung blue lights in the trees lining the main street in front of Zaza City downtown and transformed it into a fairyland.  It's too bad there aren't that many shoppers taking it all in.  At the Entetsu department store plaza adjacent to the station there's a lighted globe and dazzling stars suspended from the high ceiling (which didn't exist when last I lived here).

Even in my little neighborhood well north of city center there are houses with blinking lights.  Some jolly soul even decorated an apartment balcony by stringing a few colorful strands along the railing.  Create Drugstore has Christmas music playing over the sound system, which I have to admit entices me to want to overspend. Only I'm generally there to buy toilet cleaner and Belgian waffles, two items that don't exactly inspire feelings of warmth and joy.  Well, maybe the waffles.  They make great stocking stuffers, too.

This year, we'll spend Christmas week in Tokyo.  We have a fancy hotel room reserved and tickets for various events.  It's not a crowded itinerary, but it is a fun one.  The last time I was in Tokyo for Christmas I enjoyed strolling solo among the young lovers out on their romantic dates in Shibuya and Harajuku.  Even there Christmas music drifted through the cold air and brake lights from all the traffic combined with Christmas illuminations and omnipresent neon signage to dazzle the eyes.  I expect more of the same, only this time I'll be one of those romantics.  Which will be very pleasant indeed.

So Christmas is all around the world.  I suppose I should spend some time decrying the encroaching commercialism of it all, but Japan is not a country that shies from commercialism.  We shop til we drop whether it's Christmas or not.  I could bemoan the lack of the holiday's true spirit, but I think that's something that resides within.  You know its meaning and it's up to you to apply it as needed.