I don’t think Halloween is anywhere near to reaching its full potential in Japan, but I have definitely seen the shopping centers step up their bid to impose this spooky holiday on the masses. The orange on black colour combo has taken over my local shopping center, and Tokyo Times report the same happening in the capital. I wonder how long it will be before Halloween reaches the horribly commercial levels of Japanese Christmas?Â
My students don’t seem to be having Halloween parties like American kids might, but I do know some of them are learning about October 31st in elementary school. As an ESL teacher, I’ve had to go through the picture cards, teaching words such as ghost and Jack-o-lantern.
I don’t remember Halloween being of any particular importance when I was a kid in the U.K, so I’ve never been too keen on teaching it. Nevertheless, even if the Japanese know more about Halloween than I do, I print off some Halloween flash cards and bingo sheets and play my CD of ghostly classics, including the one in this video.
Get in the Halloween mood, and scream along with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins!
If you can’t view the video, watch it here on YouTube.
If you like, you can find me on Twitter at @nick_ramsay. I'd love to hear from you!
I’ve seen a few young women (early 20’s) dressing up in some pretty scary outfits recently at Nagoya station. Oh wait … I think they were just Goth 😕
Hallowe’en might become a bit more popular in the near future, but stores need to give people a reason to dress up. Perhaps some parties….
That’s a good point. None of my students, not a single one, is going to a Halloween party. Maybe they just dress up at home… 😕
Well much like Christmas, I guess it will really become commercialized. It really does seem like the only reason its their is to make stores money, and so I guess thats why we have it too… oh well, if people have fun then I guess its cool.