Why Japan Celebrates Christmas with KFC (2016)
bbc.comThat's brilliant marketing: find a cultural event that doesn't have established traditions in an area, and fill the void with your product. I wonder what might be some cultural vacuums waiting to be filled in the United States... I suppose one example might be how big Cinco de Mayo is in the US, and its association with margaritas.
If your marketing is already centered around a white-bearded Western guy in a suit, making the connection to Santa Claus seems almost natural in hindsight.
Red brand color and cloths are also a big win.
Maybe micro-celebrity personality cults, where micro-communities develop a design language that only has meaning within their bubble, and they practice consumer rituals around their idol's birthday, for example.
I had always heard Jewish Americans eat Chinese food and see a movie on Christmas.
Because those are the only two places open on Christmas.
There's a great videographer on YouTube named Chris Broad who moved to Japan and has been living there for something like 10 years now. He does a show called "Abroad in Japan"
He did a great video on this topic which is worth checking out (as well is all his other content for those interested in Japanese culture!)
So Japan has Christmas traditions from KFC's marketing and the US and Europe from Coca Cola's marketing
And from the pagan tradition of the yul festival, only a few millennia prior.
Yes people forget how Coca Cola molded Santa’s image.
That's largely overstated: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-claus-that-refreshes/
I have some Japanese friends that never could explain me this tradition. I always thought that it was introduced by some American navy/soldiers that while stationed in Japan wanted to celebrate Christmas, and the only western restaurant in the city/region that they could find, was a KFC.. I still think my theory/urban legend is way better ;)
After 2 atomic bombs you suddenly realize how cool the americans are.
“Those whacky Japanese” is a perennial category of bus-plunge journalism.
It only seems odd if you don’t think about it much. Americans don’t think Honey Baked Ham or Boston Market on a holiday is weird though both are franchises and Boston Market was formerly a McDonalds brand.
Try to book a table at Outback on Valentines (or even get seated at Applebee’s).
And while Americans have good cause to celebrate Benito Juarez saving their bacon by stopping the French while Americans were busy killing each other from fixed positions in the Civil War, Taco Bell chalupa combo boxes with a forty ounce no ice Mountain Dew doesn’t really align with Cinco de Mayo any better than extra crispy at xmas.
Every body is whacky.
> “Those whacky Japanese” is a perennial category of bus-plunge journalism.
Perhaps, but this isn't one of those stories. There's a genuinely interesting history to how KFC became a Japanese Christmas staple - well, I found it interesting, at least.
I found it entertaining.
But when I finished I didn't have a better understanding of Japan's people, culture, or cuisine. Only a p-hack explained by multi-national marketing.
I understood that very small $ of Japanese people are not Christians and do not celebrate Christmas before; fast food isn't considered cheap terrible food in Japan (at least American fast food chains) and that they value family time together and created/adhered to a tradition of getting families together on a day they normally wouldn't before since perfect excuse to be with family.
That's good enough piece
I'm American and I've never heard of Boston Market for Christmas, and it doesn't exist where I grew up, or in the region, and I would definitely think it was weird if someone wanted that for Christmas. I've never even heard of a franchise chain called Honey Baked. Are you from California or something? Why do people think Americans are a monolith?
Where I'm from everything is closed on Christmas, even Wal-Mart, except the local Chinese takeout, so if you don't want home cooking, that's your one option.
Now, living in a larger area, there are some other limited options but as a seventh generation European descended American I have never known a single family that celebrated Christmas by going to a franchise restaurant
I get your point to an extent, but are you serious with the not knowing Honey Baked Ham? Maybe if your upbringing says no pork, then sure you'd probably not be familiar but I'd at least thought the name would have been at least heard of in school/office/entertainment/etc. Clearly I'm wrong in that.
Not everyone has a large family after growing up and getting holiday meals from "strange" places isn't that strange. Getting a fully cooked holiday meal from the grocery store is a thing, lots of restaurants do this as well. Boston Market often has menu items of turkey/dressing/potatoes/etc that one might think of a traditional holiday meal, so this isn't a stretch for them.
>I get your point to an extent, but are you serious with the not knowing Honey Baked Ham? Maybe if your upbringing says no pork, then sure you'd probably not be familiar but I'd at least thought the name would have been at least heard of in school/office/entertainment/etc. Clearly I'm wrong in that.
You and GP might be talking past each other. GP is talking about "Honey Baked Ham" as a brand name. You might be talking about honey baked ham as a generic food.
I've also spent all my life in the US in vastly different regions, and I've never heard of a franchise called Honey Baked Ham, but I'm aware of honey baked ham as a food product.
An Occam's Razor guess where those honey baked ham food products tend to come from can be confirmed with a google when honey baked ham is what you're bringing to the next party.
>I get your point to an extent, but are you serious with the not knowing Honey Baked Ham? Maybe if your upbringing says no pork, then sure you'd probably not be familiar but I'd at least thought the name would have been at least heard of in school/office/entertainment/etc. Clearly I'm wrong in that.
Funny thing was, I had never heard of Honey Baked Ham until my first boss told me he used to be a manager at one. The irony there was that he was Jewish and didn't eat pork.
Never heard of Honey Baked (Ham?) brand name before. Grew up in Chicago. I’ve had honey baked ham (lowercase) before, but we always got it from a place in Michigan for the holidays.
I’ve never heard of honey baked ham the food chain.
I've never even heard of a franchise chain called Honey Baked. Are you from California or something?
Not OP, but I’m from the Midwest, and I find your “must be a California thing” hilarious given that we were eating a Honey Baked Ham at least once a year over 40 years ago. Imagine my surprise (and regret that I had since gone vegetarian) when I moved to the west coast and found a Honey Baked Ham store in Bellevue, WA. My wife still gets one once in a great while, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t sneak a piece or two.
Anyway, back to the point, looking their website prompts me to ask where one would have to live in the U. S. and not be within an hour’s drive of a store.
Well I grew up in a small town that's not within an hour of much of anything. It was a big deal when we got an Arby's, in the mid aughts. There's a lot of that in the US, even on the east coast. People who live in cities and fly all the time seem to forget about that.
Figure out where it takes a couple hours of driving to get to an international airport and you'll have an idea.
Anyway, I just assume anything people on this site assume everyone has seen is from California, especially if I've never heard of it.
Maybe I've just never been in the market for fast food ham? I still feel like this is a weird example of something Americans commonly do on Christmas.
You should get out more lol
> at least once a year over 40 years ago
From Seattle, same story. Thanksgiving and Christmas always included honey baked ham.
Well Boston Market's food selection is basically American Thanksgiving and Christmas food year round. You can go in and order Turkey or Ham, with sides like mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potatoes, vegetable casseroles, etc. Honey Baked ham is a company that does the same thing, it's big for prepared take out meals for the holidays.
So no, standard families in the suburbs may be making their own meals, but there are certainly many people in the US that aren't in that situation. Young people away from home, singles and couples, non traditional families, families that don't have time to cook because of jobs or don't want to. There are many people who get holiday meals from these restaurants.
I'm with bbbbbbddddgbb on this one...
And if you're hitting up Taco Bell on Cinco de Mayo, you're doing it wrong. Home-make 7-layer dip and margaritas (if you're into that kinda thing) is how we rock it in Colorado.
So Nachos Bell Grande and Tequila in the forty ounce Mountain Dew. Those whacky Coloradans.
There are people in japan that don't go to KFC either.
The meme-able phenomenon the OP is talking about is very real and certainly not regional or niche e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/LosAngeles/comments/9z7zd6/honey_ba...
An you try to prove that with a link to a Los Angeles reddit?
Should have been qualified with middle-class Americans living in the suburbs.
Growing up in a rural area with Chinese takeout as the only Christmas option is well protected from the pre-conditioned Honey Baked Ham holiday lifestyle.
so the British Broadcasting Company wrote an article about some trivia regarding Japan, so you feel the compulsion to remind everyone that the United States 'is wacky too'.
Problem is that TFA never called anyone wacky; they didn't try to pass judgment at all -- and the United States wasn't ever involved in either side until you injected them into it , unless you blame the country for KFC all together? I don't follow.
Surely there must be some behavior you find strange from Britain ; you know -- the originator of the article -- without trying to loop around the world to drag another country through the mud?
> “Those whacky Japanese” is a perennial category of bus-plunge journalism.
'bus-plunge journalism' isn't only about needlessly expanding nothing stories into pages, it also includes a level of exaggeration. I guess you could say the headline is exaggerated because it's not the entirety of Japan that celebrates with KFC? Feels like yak-shaving, most assume that headlines don't apply universally to entire countries full of people.
> Americans don’t think Honey Baked Ham or Boston Market on a holiday is weird
(as an American I do.. but who cares, let's look at the numbers)
The Honey Baked Ham Company says that it services about 2.5 million customers between Thanksgiving to New Years, meaning that the KFC phenomenon in Japan is significantly stronger, given that TFA states that 3.5 million families purchase KFC for Christmas in Japan.
Smaller time frames, smaller country, more sales; seemingly stronger trend.
This response seems like a bit of an over reaction to me. Why get so concerned about the comparison that adds another country into the mix? How else was this mean to be debated?
Maybe we are all wacky, but clearly Americans are sensitive…
What sounds wackier than the "Japan + Christmas = KFC?"
Even if a person isn't British -- but as noted that's the primary intended audience here. An audience where Kentucky and fried chicken and "Colonel" as an honorary vary between a bit culturally alien to quite so indeed.
The British press, BBC included, has a long history of portraying the otherness of anyone complected unlike a Windsor. I mean the BBC broke Lilibet-naming-gate.
Now I want the BBC to publish the article “Why Americans celebrate Cinco de Mayo with Taco Bell chalupa combo boxes with a forty ounce no ice Mountain Dew”
As others have mentioned both Honey Baked Ham and Boston Market serve what's come to be Thanksgiving/Christmas meal staples.
Every restaurant is packed for Valentines. It's a big date night. Going out on a date means going out to eat. There's nothing specific to Outback about going there on Valentines, that's just where some portion of people go. Same with Applebees.
And while Americans celebrating Cinco de Mayo is odd, it's not a uniquely Taco Bell thing. Any vaguely Mexican adjacent business will advertise around it.
This mashup of KFC and Christmas is a very brand specific thing unique to that country.
I mean - I don't think this article falls under the category of "those whacky japanese." It was a pretty respectful and borderline poignant article.
Do what I do, and screencap every time the smallest bit of Japan-based trivial junk makes it to the front page of HN.
Your screenshots folder will be filled within a few weeks. ;P
Japan gets more flak because it's physical and historical isolation plus high cultural homogeneity have resulted in unique societal quirks.
Going to western Europe feels like the US. Going to Japan from the west still feels like traveling the world once did. Its unique culture is appreciated worldwide, even from closest neighbors.
They had smartphones almost a decade before we did. They had high speed rail before anyone else . Manga and anime are now worldwide, but they were born in Japan. Kawaii has spread to south Korea and to some extent the west, but it was born in Japan. Hanko instead of signatures is unique. Bowing. Onsen. Sumo. Vending machines. Much of the food... There's countless examples.
We're should be celebrating human uniqueness, Japan is a special place
Christmas in Japan was pitched by retailers as a fun way to spend your year-end bonus.
Similarly, Valentine's Day was pitched by chocolate companies as a time to buy chocolates for your sweetheart. There are actually two such days: on Valentine's Day women give chocolates to their sweethearts, while on White Day (March 14), said sweethearts return the favor.
Japanese people are starting to do things for Halloween. I am not sure what the marketing story is behind that.
Starting to do things for halloween? Halloween in Shibuya is probably the most crazy thing I've ever seen and it's not all foreigners!
One past thread:
Japan Celebrates Christmas with KFC - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16002210 - Dec 2017 (9 comments)
Somewhere in the past archives there's also a link to a good article on Col. Harlan Sanders, his life, and his struggles against the corporation that bought him out.
Wikipedia has a good summary [0] and [1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_KFC#Heublein_and_st...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonel_Sanders#1930%E2%80%931...
Also see: the Curse of the Colonel[0].
LOL
"There, an assemblage of supporters yelled the players' names, and with every name, a fan resembling a member of the victorious team leaped from the bridge into the waiting canal. However, lacking a Caucasian person to imitate MVP Randy Bass, the rabid crowd seized a plastic statue of Colonel Sanders (like Bass, the Colonel had a beard and was not Japanese) from a nearby KFC and tossed it off the bridge as an effigy.
According to the urban legend, this impulsive maneuver cost the team greatly, beginning the Curse of the Colonel, which states that the Tigers will not win the championship again until the statue is recovered. Subsequently, numerous attempts had been made to recover the statue, often as part of a variety TV show."
It's worth noting that KFC in other countries is often better than the greasy mess we typically find in the US. Same with McDonald's in my experience as well.
I do not understand "KFC" as a business model; in the southern USA they have competition (every gas station has fried chicken), and the KFC chain seems to be dedicated to providing the worst food and the worst service in the market.
For the last 20 years or more, the KFC nearest to me has been known to the locals as a place to avoid at all costs. They've had 2 periods of revival, in the month after new owners took over, neither lasted more than a month or so. The default state is under cooked food, high prices, and shitty service. They have a policy of shorting orders and shorting change; it must be policy, random error would happen in the customers' favor sometimes.
I'd suspect they were a cover for some illegal activity, but if they are its happening at some higher level that I cannot perceive.
My experience is mainly that the chicken is pretty good but way overpriced for what it is. Service is on-par with other fast food. So I also don't understand why people choose KFC. Even when I did decide I wanted to eat there, They were also typically closed around the time I'd be looking for dinner.
It's just par for the course for generic-ass buy-a-job franchise schemes. McDonald's afiak has pretty close management of their operations to counteract this expected behavior.
Can’t agree more. Chinese branch of KFC/McDonalds not only has many delicious specials you can’t find outside China, even the basic fried chicken is much more juicy and flavorful. I can only find similar fried chicken in some very niche brands in US.
In this particular case though it is quite strange to me. Between katsu and tenpura, the Japanese are expert at fried food, in which they place peculiar importance on the lightness/crispiness. I tried KFC in Japan and it's mostly the same as anywhere else, a greasy mess.
Try the current rage here: Karaage no Tensai (Fried Chicken Genius). It's a greasy mess of fatty bits. I could barely finish a serving. I suppose there's always a line due to the massive portions.
There's good and bad, just like everywhere else -- excluding South Korea. Korean fried chicken is simply next level.
pretty much everyone is familiar with frying food. howver, they all use different ingredients/spices/etc. that was always the KFC thing with their secret blend of spices. their original recipe isn't crunchy at all. so it's not really worth saying all fried food is the same so Japanese are expert where KFC (or any family table on a Sunday in the South) are not.
I mean tempura is Portugese influenced so what's so strange about a modern influence of fried food?
It's true. From my own experience, Starbucks in Japan is far superior than in the US, too. 7-11's are _wonderful_ in Japan.
7-11 were great for the 5 minutes their CEO actually cared about making customers happy and brought in innovations that literally forced nearly every other convenience store to consolidate into a mega chain into order to stay in business:
- aggressive expansion of corporate-owned stores
- very clean and modern toilets with a “free to use” policy
- vertical integration: nearly every product became 7-11 branded.
- better quality of food in general, especially hot items
- fresh coffee, brewed to order
Of course, they fired that guy for a penny pincher and the quality took a dramatic nosedive to the point that shitty 7-11 products are a meme now. Things like bentos with a bottom that curves upwards to make it look like there is more product than there really is, sandwiches with filling only in side the visible from the shelf, shrinking onigiri, or “strawberry pulp” that is literally a picture of strawberry pulp printed onto the cup.
Nearly all of the other brands consolidated into Famima, and now Famima is competing on quality to take advantage of the situation. It was amazing how quickly they got their act together when they realized what was going on at 7.
Very sad to hear that. I guess all [good] things certainly do come to an end. I haven't been back there in a few years, so I'm recalling the "good ol' days", I guess.
Isn’t it great when shareholders at publicly traded companies say “Hey, we could totally make more money by making our product suck”?
They’ll probably get their act together sooner or later; McDonald’s in Japan had an extreme turnaround for the better after years of poor management and scandals.
I have found (US, Canada, UK) that Starbucks like most chains responds to the local competition. Where there's good coffee available in quantity, they hire baristas who drink it and know what they're doing. When there's few options, youthful customers or lots of tourists they go with the colored drinks and the coffee sux. I have also found that outside the US (possibly outside of N America), there's less sugar and more taste involved.
McDonald's in Italy is interesting - ketchup is not free (€0.50) and in taste is a lot like tomato sauce.
This is not always true. A prominent food blogger Mikey Chen visited the KFC Buffet in Tokyo and was thoroughly disappointed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIzhomIj-YQ
When I lived in New Zealand for a year, one day my friends at school wanted to sneak out during lunch to go to KFC (which there they market as "kiwi for chicken"). This was something you'd not hear American high school students say, at least in California. However, it was significantly better tasting. Not mind blowing or anything, but pretty decent.
KFC in France, while still a low key fast food, is not bad. Much better than McDonalds for sure.
I was so impressed with McDonald's in France I ate it several times last time I was there.
The best McDonald's I've ever eaten in are in Switzerland. I think it's because they use Swiss beef which is of uniformly high quality.
Yes, I've tried it in a couple countries and the best McDonald's meal I've had was in Champs-Élysées, Paris, France.
France is actually a significant market for McDonald. It was the second one a decade ago, no idea if it’s still the case.
They also have some type of coffee shop/pastry joint inside, where you seat and the waiter brings the food.
KFC in the UK/Ireland is pretty good.
It’s definitely not good for you, but it’s tasty.
As a US-living Japanese, I was deeply disappointed when I stopped by a KFC on a Christmas day (not as planned, but just for curiosity.) Even though it's not for everyone as other comment suggests (KFC density in Japan isn't prepared for that.) It's still something. Here in US it's nothing!
Note that it's not that common to see roast chicken in grocery stores in Japan. So KFC isn't the worst option if you crave chicken for some reason.
> While millions do celebrate Christmas with KFC, others in Japan treat it as a romantic holiday similar to Valentine’s Day, and couples mark the occasion with dinner in upscale restaurants. For other Japanese families, Christmas is acknowledged but not celebrated in any particular way.
It seems strange at first, but it makes sense when you consider only about 1.5% of Japanese people are Christians. Christmas as we know it in countries with a Christian majority doesn't mean much to them.
I'm pretty sure this is objectively not true. Christmas is only a religious holiday if you're already religious, and even then, you're ignoring the fact that today's "Christmas" is mostly an assemblage of traditions "borrowed" from other earlier religions.
To a lot of people (and I tentatively claim most people, probably) Christmas is either a mostly or entirely secular holiday, celebrating family and the coming of lighter days after the winter solstice, the southern hemisphere notwithstanding.
You are missing my point. Japan is a highly secular country nowadays, but Christianity in particular was banned and persecuted until not so long ago. Christmas means nothing to them, so the fact they celebrate "Christmas" with KFC is not very interesting.
My country is supposedly overwhelmingly Christian, but most people including myself don't care much about Christmas in a traditional sense anymore. In fact I have celebrated Christmas with Asian food a few times. So you would expect a non Christian country to care even less.
I never realized that Christmas is right after the winter equinox (or never connected these two dates), but it makes a lot of sense, thank you very much!
You might also be interested to learn that Easter is a fertility festival!
Christianity was a hard sell back a couple thousand years ago, so it was often simpler to just coopt existing pagan holidays.
> Easter is a fertility festival!
That’s a common myth. In most languages (English being an exception), Easter’s name is derived from Passover. Eggs and bunnies are a later development, but through medieval Christian traditions, not pagan fertility connections.
Much is made of the fact that in English, the name “Easter” comes from Ēostre, a pagan goddess. But that’s accepted to have happened because the holiday falls within the month Germanics named after her. Easter isn’t co‐opting Ēostre worship any more than Good Friday co‐opts worship of Frigg.
I was not aware there was any serious disagreement about the history here, and in fact I can't find anything authoritative to corroborate your assertion, or mine. This is not uncommon for this period of history, of course, and there are agendas on all sides.
When I studied ancient Rome, my (secular) education was that Christianity had few adherents at the time, and since the doctrine was very much in flux (many of the books were not even written) and there were social or legal implications to declaring your faith, it was practical to follow the local custom outwardly, while maintaining your faith inwardly.
The most visible is the adoption of Saturnalia (winter solstice) as the time of Jesus' birth. It was the biggest Roman/pagan holiday, and the documentation of his true birthdate was incomplete, so ... Christmas?
The activities of celebration for Saturnalia and Christmas were wildly different (though to be fair, Christmas celebration didn't begin for a few centuries after 0CE, and they did get a bit rowdy in the middle ages!)
The crucifixion is better-documented. That it fell around the time of an existing fertility festival near the vernal equinox might be mere coincidence, I suppose. But rebirth/resurrection/fertility are variations on a theme, so either interpretation can be reasonable.
Additionally (I don't know if this is canon!), Easter is about 40 weeks preceding Christmas. Immaculate conception or not, gestation is still a thing, and the timing is interesting.
In the northern hemisphere it follows the winter solstice.
In the other half of the world it’s the start of summer.
Note that other half of the world has like, 15% of the humans.
Getting close to a billion souls.
> It seems strange at first
Why would it seem strange at first that a country that isn’t very Christian would not celebrate Christmas? Why would they?
The article doesn't mention it. So it makes everything seem a bit bizarre, but the thing that amazes me the most is that they celebrate Christmas at all.
The commercial version of Christmas is "celebrated" across East Asia. It's treated pretty much as a Hallmark Holiday.
The real story is, most people in Japan don't bother to eat KFC on Christmas. I never did. It's just KFC spend money on ads in Christmas. It goes the same for Valentine's day(to gift chocolate) or Halloween(cosplay) or whatever foreign culture marketing people felt exotic and fresh to shove it to the general mass.
The real story is a ton of supermarkets have special chicken menus on Christmas.
That's funny: in my family we have a similar tradition for Pâques : when I was young my mother would spend a lot of time cooking but now we usually order sushi: we enjoys more the family reunion without having to spend half a day (at least) cooking..
Another Japanese Christmas classic is the song Christmas Eve by Tatsuro Yamashita, it was used in a romantic Japan Railways campaign in the 90s and it's still pretty popular.
> How a fast-food marketing campaign turned into a widespread Yuletide tradition for millions.
Christmas here too was a marketing campaign gone wrong.
Pretty early case of marketing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas#Introduction_of_the_...
I'm talking about modern Christmas.. with Santa, gifts, decorations, etc...
How so? And where’s here?
Much of the US retail market plans their whole year around Christmas. The percentage of their yearly income is from that season (for online retailers Black Friday, Cyber Monday) and is usually what gets them through the slower rest of the year.
In the USA... what a spending frenzy/waste it is... Not very eco-friendly.