Smithsonian.com: It’s Christmas Eve in Japan. Little boys and girls pull on their coats, the twinkle of anticipation in their eyes. Keeping the tradition alive, they will trek with their families to feast at … the popular American fast food chain KFC.
Christmas isn’t a national holiday in Japan—only one percent of the Japanese population is estimated to be Christian—yet a bucket of “Christmas Chicken” (the next best thing to turkey—a meat you can’t find anywhere in Japan) is the go-to meal on the big day. And it’s all thanks to the insanely successful “Kurisumasu ni wa kentakkii!” (Kentucky for Christmas!) marketing campaign in 1974.
When a group of foreigners couldn’t find turkey on Christmas day and opted for fried chicken instead, the company saw this as a prime commercial opportunity and launched its first Christmas meal that year: Chicken and wine for 834 2,920 yen($10)—pretty pricey for the mid-seventies. Today the christmas chicken dinner (which now boasts cake and champagne) goes for about 3,336 yen ($40).
And the people come in droves. Many order their boxes of ”finger lickin’” holiday cheer months in advance to avoid the lines—some as long as two hours. (read more)
6 comments:
I wonder what the Japanese words are for "it's finger licking good."
Nice change of pace from kitty and puppy.
(j/k - that's the China)
Fingle rickin' good!
I follow Norm McDonald on Twitter and he hasn't mentioned anything about being the new voice for Colonel Sanders, but I'll swear that sounds exactly like him.
Do you see how excellently post-modern this is?
Norm, a Canadian comedian voicing a Kentuckian schtick Colonel in Japan substituting glorified chicken for turkey on the date of a holiday they don't care about by way of a restaurant, a fast food no less, in defiance of the essence of hearth and home and formal family celebratory meal. It's quite an incredible set of directions to veer, yet there it is. More than mere marketing, all those disparate disciplines drawn from agreeably to get to this point yet here it is, a new thing in the world that people agree to like. Now those children grow up with this as their heartfelt tradition. Their holiday pop-up card will include KFC.
Off the plane at Mazatlan a passenger remarked to his group about an advertisement for KFC in Spanish immediately outside the rudimentary airstrip. "Oh look, KFC." Not exactly a welcome sight first off nor all that surprising, "Good, as if to lick one's fingers" He chirped amusing. Psych! A joke, the sign did not say, "Bueno, como si lamer los dedos" nor "dedo buena lamiendo" It said simply, "finger lick'n good" as usual.
That was a very long time ago, my first trip there, I just reminded myself how much Mexico becomes more and more like America each trip. Not just the KFC thing, but all those things. Telephone service, for example. You used to be able to trace the telephone wire out of the building and see where it is twist-tied jury-rigged connected and wonder how any communication is possible at all. You'd see from the highway someone filling five gallon water bottles for the hotels from a garden hose. One of our favorite meals was delivered from Pizza Hut and included a dozen corn tortillas for some reason. Later the group I traveled there with refused a sushi place in Puerto Vallarta for being uncertain, yet there we are right on the ocean. There we are with authentic Japanese immigrants to Mexico. They shared the same lazy biases and prejudices drawn from their standard American logic, all Democrats, every single one will vote Hilary without batting an eye and with fifteen million reasons why all Republican are impossible, and they WILL NOT go inside the place, not even to look, but they will accept ceviche prepared by any Mexican down there any time anywhere and they will accept sushi back here in Denver, far from oceans as possible, prepared by cooks trained in Mexico. Go figure. No. Don't go figure. They're not worth figuring. They're stupid. And I'm cross with myself for dwelling on this, for abiding again in their stupid world.
Strange that turkey is not available in Japan. It is not a staple, but common through North Africa since turkey's are easy to raise and get big relatively quickly and efficiently (fed grain and farming scraps). Turkeys do not do well in tropical climates, but in places like the Middle East and Asia you can find it. In a limited ag land place like Japan, I would think turkey would be popular for that reason alone. Not as big roasts, but as a processed meat product produced on small farms with limited space.
Turkeys Rising!
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