HOOSIERS TRIBUNE　on 11/28

フージャーズの皆様へ

こんばんは、デモらです。

もうすぐ12月ですね。12月12日イヤーエンドパーティー開催のため、今回11月28日が
今年最後の例会開催となります。新年最初の例会については後日メールにて
ご案内します。なお、イヤーエンドパーティーについては別送の案内(出欠確認)
メールをご覧ください。

さて、今回のトピックは毎年この時期恒例、クリスマスについてです。クリスマスの
甘く切ない？思い出を聞かせてください。

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□■土曜会ブログ更新中■□

http://ameblo.jp/doyoukai/theme-10010279272.html

皆さん、どしどしコメントをお願いします！！

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☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆


Christmas in Japan

It's the end of the first week of December, which means the odd annual festival of Christmas in Japan is once again in full swing.
In fact, it's inescapable: bells ringing, carols tinkling, lights twinkling, shoppers jostling, cakes a-baking everywhere you look.

Ubiquity is not what makes it odd, though. The same commerce-driven Christmas tsunami is swamping many other countries, too, as
happens every year. The difference is that here, where it is largely bereft of religious significance, the Christmas season is like
a holly-wreathed Potemkin village: all facade and nothing behind it, except for a peek preview of Valentine's Day. The oddity,
especially to those used to a more religious observance, is that it remains so heartwarming. As Charles Dickens taught us long ago,
it's hard to stay sour in the face of good cheer -- even, apparently, tasteless, manipulative or borrowed good cheer.

Logically speaking, it may seem rather silly for a populace to embrace, or at least tolerate, a festival rooted in a religion to
which less than 1 percent of it subscribes. That is why foreign visitors' conventional response to Christmas in Japan mostly appears
to veer between bemusement and disapproval. Many think it is weird for the season to peak on Christmas Eve, leaving Christmas Day
itself -- supposedly the festival of the birth of Christ -- looking like a brightly wrapped but starkly empty gift box.

But here's another way to think of it: Christmas in Japan works because it actually reverts to festivals that predate Christianity.
It's possible, in other words, to observe Christmas as a secular occasion, as non-Christians in many Christian countries do. The
central religious event that defines the season and gave us the word Christmas is of course unique to Christianity. Yet many of the
trappings of the celebration evolved from pre-existing Aztec or Druid or Norse or Roman traditions marking the midwinter solstice,
or shortest day of the year, in the Northern Hemisphere. Some of them were religious, some not.

Numerous symbols associated nowadays with Christmas -- decorated trees, holly, ivy, Yule logs, Santa Claus, gift-giving, feasting,
candles and much more -- didn't originate with the Christian festival but with those far older or analogous observances that focused
on light, warmth and plenty in the midst of darkness, cold and seasonal barrenness. Christianity arrived, saw these midwinter feasts
as literal expressions of its own figurative idea of Christ as a light dispelling the darkness, and promptly appropriated them.

The pre-existing idea, however, belongs to everybody. Consider the poem written by Christina Rossetti around 1872 in response to a
magazine's request for a Christmas contribution. Its famous first stanza, setting the scene for Christ's nativity, actually sets the
scene for any midwinter celebration, whether religious or secular, Christian or not. Although Rossetti wrote these beautiful lines
in England, there is not a word here that doesn't also precisely describe midwinter in, say, Japan's snow country:

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
in the bleak midwinter, long ago.

In such weather, it is only natural to want to light a fire, burn candles, string colored lights, heat up some mulled wine, throw a
party, eat cake and give a few gifts. We may think of these as Christmassy activities, but they don't have to be. On the other hand,
it does no harm to have a label for the season. For anyone offended by the excesses of the global marketing wizards in their largely
successful campaign to "Christmasize" almost the entire month of December, the solutions are obvious: Stay out of the department
stores and wear headphones. Otherwise, we say go with the flow.

Long ago, the new Christian festival marking Christ's birth was superimposed upon a hodgepodge of older ones, borrowing many of
their symbols and customs. That's the messy human way. Nowadays, non-Christians need have no hesitation about borrowing some of them
back for their own version of Christmas. As some angels are reputed to have said, it's all about good will:

Now Christmas is come,
Let us beat up the drum
And call all our neighbors together;
And when they appear,
Let us make them such cheer
As will keep out the wind and the weather!

Q1. What is Christmas for you?

あなたにとってクリスマスとは何ですか？

Q2. What is Christmas for the Japanese?

日本人にとってクリスマスとは何ですか？

Q3. What do you want for a Christmas present?

クリスマスプレゼントに何が欲しいですか？

Q4. Why has Christmas become so popular in Japan although it's rooted in a religion to which less than 1 percent of the nations
subscribe?

国民の1％以下しか支持していない宗教に起源するのにどうしてクリスマスは日本にこれほど広がったのでしょう。

Q5. Talk about your sweet or good memories related to Christmas.

クリスマスに関する甘い・良い思い出を話してください。

Q6. What is the biggest news about you and society this year?

あなたそして社会の、今年一番大きなニュースは何ですか？

Q7. Who is the most influential person for you this year? Talk about him or her.

今年、あなたに最も影響を与えた人物は誰ですか？その人について語ってください。