12-01-2003, 09:03 AM
Merry Christmas...
Christmas started in Japan shortly after I got back from the states. About the 5th of November, the season called "Happiness" by the marketing people ended. Christmas began.
At first, it was subtle. "Jingle Bells", "Silent Night" and the like were quietly Muzak'd into elevators. Some lights showed up along the streets. And then, suddenly, everything exploded.
The Muzak in the elevators is now so loud you can't think. The lights are so bright and numerous you're worried about slightly lost pilots mistaking Roppongi for Narita. And the displays have multiplied.
There are subtle ones. The "Roppongi Christmas Precious Gift" signs aren't bad. Okay, they tell you the important thing -- yes, the PRICE -- but they're small and ignorable. The flashing, singing, dancing shop displays behind plate glass windows aren't bad; you get the same thing all over the US. But the most annoying ones are these animatronic robotic things. In the states, you can buy a little christmas tree that will sing a silly song. Here, you can buy a whole forest, and they communicate wirelessly. Picture walking into a store and listening to an animatronic Santa Claus, Misses Clause, Rudolph and a tree singing and dancing in unison. Amazing, perhaps, but then you realize that it will NEVER STOP!
Of course, Japan doesn't celebrate Christmas as anything religious or the like. It's entirely an excuse to spend money. And unlike in the US where we seem to pretend that Christmas still has some underlying value there somewhere beneath the prezzies, here they don't bother. It's about the stuff, and let's face it, in a consumer economy, the stuff is what its all about...
So, that's the news here this week?
Christmas started in Japan shortly after I got back from the states. About the 5th of November, the season called "Happiness" by the marketing people ended. Christmas began.
At first, it was subtle. "Jingle Bells", "Silent Night" and the like were quietly Muzak'd into elevators. Some lights showed up along the streets. And then, suddenly, everything exploded.
The Muzak in the elevators is now so loud you can't think. The lights are so bright and numerous you're worried about slightly lost pilots mistaking Roppongi for Narita. And the displays have multiplied.
There are subtle ones. The "Roppongi Christmas Precious Gift" signs aren't bad. Okay, they tell you the important thing -- yes, the PRICE -- but they're small and ignorable. The flashing, singing, dancing shop displays behind plate glass windows aren't bad; you get the same thing all over the US. But the most annoying ones are these animatronic robotic things. In the states, you can buy a little christmas tree that will sing a silly song. Here, you can buy a whole forest, and they communicate wirelessly. Picture walking into a store and listening to an animatronic Santa Claus, Misses Clause, Rudolph and a tree singing and dancing in unison. Amazing, perhaps, but then you realize that it will NEVER STOP!
Of course, Japan doesn't celebrate Christmas as anything religious or the like. It's entirely an excuse to spend money. And unlike in the US where we seem to pretend that Christmas still has some underlying value there somewhere beneath the prezzies, here they don't bother. It's about the stuff, and let's face it, in a consumer economy, the stuff is what its all about...
So, that's the news here this week?