youki hirakawa

Easter

East er / 2024

Vintage Christmas ornaments made in Occupied Japan

Through the postwar occupation by the GHQ, Christmas events in Japan rapidly became popularized. However, this was not Christmas as a religious event, but rather as part of department store commercial campaigns. In Japan, where Christians make up less than 1% of the population, this event—so to speak, a product of capitalism—further ballooned as a centerpiece of commercial strategy during the Cold War-era bubble economy, and it continues to be celebrated extravagantly even today. Yet, Easter, the celebration of Christ’s resurrection, is hardly observed in Japan. The way Christmas is treated as decoration in far-eastern Japan, and the mercury glass Christmas ornaments that were mass-produced and exported under the occupation in the Land of the Rising Sun, reflect us back in their dull gleam.

*In present-day Japan, as many as 60% of people identify as non-religious.