Fun Holiday Videos: Japan-style

While I often choose to keep it festive during my December posts by either creating bad parody poetry or reading holiday comics, this year I've found myself taking a bit of a different spin. I recently had a conversation with a friend where we discussed if we could just claim that Christmas is now "officially" a secular holiday. While I feel that this idea is still premature, it didn't stop us from talking about how Christmas has evolved over the years and has been adopted and celebrated by other cultures in new and rather interesting ways. Most notably Japan and their tradition of eating Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas.

After this conversation ended, I pretty much went home and jumped down the YouTube rabbit-hole to see what exactly a KFC Christmas meal would look like and where the tradition came from. To save you the time, I've posted a couple of my favorite videos below.

Simon and Martina: Eat Your Kimchi Simon and Martina have been living overseas and posting about their lives for 10 years now. Previous to living in Japan, they lived and posted videos from South Korea. I've been watching them for some time now and appreciate how they can be both upbeat and honest about their lives, even when things aren't going well. If you like this video, I highly recommend you spend some quality time with their channel. If not just to watch videos of their dog, Spudgy (who sadly passed away not too long ago).

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn6xQ48L7ro]

Abroad in Japan A British gent now living in Japan, Chris Broad does a pretty good job at highlighting both his own culture shock and his desire to learn. He puts in enough research to add context, but if you're looking for heavy cultural analysis, this might not be the channel for you. Instead, if you enjoy a rather snarky sense of humor and a healthy amount of self-deprecation, Chris is your guy.  Think informative without the strange yelling at the camera or bouncing "walking while talking" you can get from other YouTubers. He's got over a million subscribers for a reason.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFw-TZzqX8M]

Colonel Santa not your thing? Perhaps you're in the mood for a different rabbit hole that's also filled with holiday cheer? Might I suggest starting with this list of articles from our archives?

But regardless of how you celebrate (or don't celebrate) the season, warmest wishes to you and yours. See you in the new year!