Christmas is upon us, and for a gaijin living in Japan that means one thing: being asked to dress up like “Santa-san” for Japanese kids. I’ve been asked to play Santa many times, and it’s always fun to bring a little joy to the kids, who are sure you’re the real Santa because you’re a gaijin. At one preschool I was ho-ho-ho’ing at, there was a question and answer period where the kids asked me things like, “Where do you live?” (er, Norway) and “What is your favorite color?” (red). One kid asked what Santa’s favorite food was, and I got creative and replied, “Reindeer hamburg,” which kind of freaked them out a little. In Japan, a hamburg in Japan is a steak made with ground beef, which we used to call a Salsbury Steak back in the days of tin-foil TV dinners before microwave ovens came along. Meat is expensive in Japan, and a steak made from ground beef is a more reasonable menu choice. Some restaurants such as Denny’s and Coco’s go out of their way to brand themselves as selling “authentic hamburg steak just like Americans eat,” and with the bad economy here, sales of the reasonably-priced steaks are booming. In case you were wondering: just as a “hamburg” is essentially the hamburger part without the bun around it, the word for a hot dog/frankfurter eaten all by itself is a “frankfurt.”
I don’t know a single gaijin male who was not pressed into service as Santa-san at least once.
