Christmas cakes

Many years ago, during my first winter in Japan, I had one of those strange cross cultural experiences. It was before Masayo and I were married, and we were walking through the shopping area of the little town near the base where I was stationed. All of a sudden this man came running out of a shop and calling to me. He kept repeating, "Christmas cake, Christmas cake" until he had my attention. Then he said that since I was a foreigner I would naturally want a Christmas cake and that his were the best in Japan. I looked in the store and all I could see were cakes, covered with whipped cream and whole strawberries. They looked like nothing I had ever seen before. They were very fancy, but not at all Christmas-y. I must have looked confused because the man kept telling me that all foreigners had to have a Christmas cake and that I should buy one of his. I politely refused and we continued down the street. When we got to the station, Masayo explained, while we waited for a train. In Japan, everyone thinks that North Americans and Europeans all have a cake, covered in piles of brilliant white whipped cream and bright red strawberries as part of our Christmas celebration.

This week I opened the TV supplement to our newspaper and found the page in the following pictures. Bakeries are getting more creative these days and no longer is the frosting restricted to plain whipped cream. Christmas cakes are an extremely well established part of Japanese culture and one that most people still think is an exact copy of what is done in the West. (The ads at the bottom of the pages are for two different 'new towns', a large plot of land where contractors build houses and then sell them.)