Halloween in Japan: Past memories, Future Full of Stories

Growing up in Japan, I celebrated Halloween once.  Even today, I feel cheated.  Not having had access to what surely must have been the world's most amazing candy, back several decades ago there were no pumpkins in Japan, and the idea of trick-or-treating made sense to no one I knew.  Complaining, my usual modus operandi, did me no good as the option did not exist.  No one would be prepared, no one would know what two American children dressed in whatever costumes we could muster up were doing at their front doors, threatening to misbehave in exchange for chocolate.

My parents must have felt sorry for us one year (just one year?) as in late October my mother announced a nice elderly missionary lade in town said my brother and I could come over for Halloween.  With glee, squeals, dancing what I thought counted as a jig, I dragged my brother up to my room to strategize over costumes.  The end result was a cute blond boy in one of my too-small dresses and me as a cowboy.  Don't ask.

We rang the missionary auntie's doorbell giddy over the treats that my brother and I knew she had ready for us.  Tonight he and I would have messy chocolate faces.  Oh, the joy.

Which is of course not what happened.  Auntie invited us in, (we did say "trick or treat!") and we sat down at her dining room table as she pulled out a cake.  Cake?  For Halloween?  Fine.  We'd play along.  Surely it would be chocolate.

It wasn't.  It was a spice cake in the shape of a turkey.  The tail was made out of candy corn, something I hadn't eaten to date, so my brother and I didn't feel too terribly cheated.  There was hope.  Here was American Halloween candy.  Surely it must be all that our cousins told us it would be.  That is except to say we both knew turkeys were for Thanksgiving and not Halloween, and spice cake was what grown ups ate with tea and not something children in cute costumes should be subjected to.  Our hopes hung on the candy corn.

Wax shaped into corn-like kernels that taste like nothing that should be eaten dashed our hopes.  My brother and I used our best manners to eat this crap served us, and we went home dejected.  To this day, I consider candy corn evil and the most horrid food out there.  Sticking the word "candy" onto something otherwise inedible doe not make it candy or good or food or edible.  My brother and I never celebrated Halloween again.  I feel totally and completely cheated.

Because all children should celebrate Halloween (in my most humble opinion, of course) last year I bought a costume and donned a wig, carrying several thousand pieces of American candy-goodness and made the rounds of preschools, Rikuzentakata city hall, elementary and high school sports teams and the like handing out candy throughout Tohoku in exchange for promises of good behavior.  Shy kids with outstretched hands who patiently waited for the green light to scarf down these colorfully wrapped pieces of joy made me smile.  It's one of my fondest memories in post-disaster Tohoku so far.  Dressed as a queen with curly blond hair, they knew it was me, but still moved around me cautiously, wondering just what was about to happen.

Queen Amya was a hit.  Why then did I feel the need to take the costume up a level, adding more drama to what is already a new and foreign holiday?  This year I am going as a witch.  I've always wanted to dress up as a witch.  That this year I'm finally doing so, knowing surely kids will cry at my all-black costume, scared of the evil that must hide inside--I blame the fact I was deprived of the need to celebrate as a child.  Dressing up as a witch is surely a mistake.  Bribing with candy will have to do the trick.

There's another problem with dressing as a witch, and this one I've not yet worked out.  The idea of the "thin veil between the worlds of life and death" and ghosts is a topic still delicate for kids and adults alike in Tohoku where loss of life is still a very painful topic.  Ghosts?  The veil between life and death?  For those who've lost family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues, this is not necessarily something to celebrate.  Which is why I must bend the truth.  Omission is not always a bad thing.  The consequences of me dressing up as a witch, the potentially scary part of Halloween include not being able to fully share what this day is about.  I'm choosing to believe this is not necessarily bad.  Selective representation of facts?  I can do that.  If I focus on candy and cute princess and superhero costumes kids wear in the US then I can conveniently forget the part about how this might be the night people will return from another world.  That doesn't need sharing.  Especially not in Tohoku.

This year I will say "YES" to candy, enjoying melting chocolate and sticky candy.    (On the faces of kids.  Not mine.)  Childhood memories are powerful and as evident by mine, can linger.  This year I hope to add a layer of unique and fun memories to several hundred preschoolers.  Cue joy.