Do You Know Who Jesus Is?

Had one of those interesting cultural realisations at school today. As part of an afternoon High School correspondence class, I'd prepared a short Christmas quiz consisting of various multiple choice questions, the idea being to then use these as a springboard for class discussion and a chance for me to educate my Japanese charges in the strangely foreign customs of the traditional Christian Christmas. Due the peculiar nature of my correspondence shifts at Kinokawa High School, where student class sizes are never known before the day itself, there was only one student in attendance - no matter, at least she wasn't going to be able to nod off and completely ignore me.

As it was, she seemed pretty engaged throughout, and seemed particularly interested in the photos I showed her of my parents celebrating their Christmas in the UK last year. The interesting part for me came during the quiz where, in answer the question "In which country was Jesus born?" with the options of 'America', 'England' and 'Israel', it took this girl in her late teens two attempts to get the correct answer. Hmm.

Now, we all know that the Roman Empire and the Crusades never quite made it this far, that as a consequence Christianity is not exactly big in Japan, and that the finer points of the Nativity Story are thus not drilled into young minds during their pre-school years as they are where I'm from. Even so, seeing such a clear demonstration of this rather took me aback - having attended a Catholic School myself, I was almost shocked at the student's complete lack of knowledge as to who Jesus was at all, leaving me to try and explain his significance to her in meaningful terms in the space of a few minutes. However, as an atheist I was also delighted at her complete ignorance of 'the Son of our Lord'.

Just think - a society where the insidious idea of Original Sin never took hold, where the Immaculate Conception is but a foreign theological curiosity, where the Protestant Work Ethic never got off the ground and where no zealous septugenarians are given the autocratic right to dictate the sex lives and practices of their followers. Alright, so I'm just venting my ani-religious spleen here and yes, it's not as if Japan is a utopia without any inherent forms of repression and hypocrisy to rival those above, but really - to witness Christmas in a country where all that is celebrated at this time of year by the population at large is rampant consumerism and the none-more-secular image of Santa Claus is to see cultural realativism at its finest. Which is why the large and well-organised networks of Jehova's Witnesses, Mormons and other Christian missionary intiatives out here annoy me so much, but I'll save that rant for another time.

You want an example of how commercially vacuous Christmas in Japan really is? KFC (yes, those purveyors of "finger lickin' good" bits of reprocessed meat that could conceivably be described as chicken following rigorous analysis in a petri dish) have shrewdly managed to position themselves here as the 'go to' place for all your Christmas dinner needs if you and your Japanese family fancy making like those crazy Americans and having a chicken feast on December 25th. As a result, branches nationwide are often booked up with parties well ahead of mid December. Madness. A life-sized replica of Colonel Sanders dressed in Santa's traditional finery will even greet you as you enter, though as I haven't been able to snap the one in Wakayama-Shi yet. Instead, enjoy this one dressed as a Samurai courtesy of someone else's blog.

Either way, I'll be enjoying the delights of Sri Lanka this festive season so it doesn't make any difference to me. Now, what were you saying about that guy again? Fed a crowd of thousands with several fish and a couple of loaves of bread you say? Turned water into wine and came back from the dead? Get outta here...