Halloween in Japan?!

HaLLoWeeN

There was a Halloween Day at the bar where I work at. A lot of people came with their costume and were enjoying the atmosphere which is different with the usual days. Even though, Halloween is supposed to be an Christian event, it is becoming one of the Japanese's event and they have parties all over.

The Getting Candles

When I was reading a newspaper today, I found a very interesting article which was saying that there is a similar event to Halloween in Japan. On August 7 in the evening, children go around their neighbor's house and say "Give me candles or we will scratch you!!" at the entrance. Then people at the house give them small gift such as a little money and snacks. It is called Getting Candles and it is a part of the Star Festival. This was mainly held in Sapporo and Hokkaido which was the northern part of Japan until 30 to 40 years ago. The article explained that it is still popular in some areas of Hokkaido.

The area where I grow up or neither of my prents' home town do not have such event. So this article was very interesting and I was very surprised about the fact that there was something similar to Halloween but has been done for something completely different event in Japan.

The Drill

There was the drill at Shirokane Takanawa today from 9:30-11:30. It was the community people gather together and experience the work of the fireman such as fire fighting and chain saw training, and experience the situation at the real fire.

The issue to think about

The disaster training were very useful to know what we should do at the real situation, however, people there were talking about a serious problem. They are worried about the foreigners who live in the Minato-word because foreigners do not know anything when there is any disaster. Therefore, they are trying to make opportunity to let foreigners to know information about the disaster by putting a translator at the drill training. However, there were no foreigners at all other than people from Temple. Usually, those drill trainings are for the neighborhood associations and people notice those events by looking at the circular bulletin. However, foreigners do not belong to those community and they don't know the way to inform such things to the foreigners.

The fire fighting demonstration by Shinagawa Prince Hotel.

People are watching the demonstration.

Emergency food tasting.