Sharing the Halloween season with your Japanese friends and family

Halloween wasn’t a thing here in Japan when I first arrived 20 years ago. Back then, when I was a JET Program ALT, I mentioned to my colleagues that the spooky season was one of my favorite childhood memories of my life in Canada. And was met with blank looks from those who had never experienced this festival in a country that celebrates it.

A Halloween decoration at a local park

The Halloween I enjoyed as a kid growing up in Canada was a blend of the North American celebration and lore that my Scottish relatives shared with us second-generation kids. My siblings, cousins, and I were regaled with tales of ghosts and witches. We heard recitations (somewhat expurgated) of Robert Burn’s Tam o' Shanter rollicking narrative about foolish Tam and his run-in with witches. We donned homemade costumes, went trick-or-treating, and spotted the flicker of jack-o-lanterns on front porches in our Vancouver neighborhood.

In the early 2000s when theme parks in Japan adopted this unofficial holiday as an event suddenly Halloween became a thing. Parades, parties, and decorations proliferated. These days, you can get bags of Halloween treats illustrated with bats, ghosts, and zombies in most supermarkets.

A Spooky variation on melon pan from bakery Vie de France

Now, Japanese kids participate in Halloween parties, and businesses display the characteristic black and orange decorations of bats, pumpkins, zombies, and witches.

It’s fun but where does it come from? I want to share with my colleagues, friends, and my school students the origins of Halloween. So I hunted up some Japanese language explainers.

The Irish Embassy in Japan goes all out for Halloween on their Twitter account. One Tweet that I’ve been sharing for the last few years with Japanese people is an animated short that explains that one root of Halloween is the autumn harvest festival, Samhain, celebrated by the Celts of old. It also describes the traditions of baking barm cake, trick or treating, and storytelling that go with the event.

A 2017 broadcast on Kawasaki FM radio program Fuji Fuji no Fun Fun Tuesday featured a discussion with an Irish embassy in Japan representative and another from the Irish Chamber of Commerce in Japan who lived in Ireland for some time. The guests talk about the Kawasaki Halloween Parade, the ancestor homecoming celebration of Samhain, and the spread of Halloween celebrations to the U.S. due to Irish immigration in the 19th century.

An oft-quoted litany ascribed to either English or Scottish folk bless you in this spooky season - From ghoulies and ghosties, long-leggety beasties, and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!

Have a Happy Halloween!