Would you ever wish someone a “lovely Halloween”? I kept seeing this phrase pop up in Halloween goods this year along with the more standard “Happy Halloween.” I think “lovely Halloween” may go the way of “heartful” (ハートフル), which is wasei Eigo (Japanese-created “English”) used to mean heart-warming, warm-hearted, or caring.*
Yet, there it is. Lovely Halloween (ラブリーハロウィーン). But why?
For the record, the Pocky are chocolate- and strawberry flavored; the Pretz is “salad” flavored, all of which are standard flavors; while the packaging is different and even includes a cut-out mask, the product is not actually seasonal. Apparently Pocky used to have Halloween pumpkin flavors, which you can see on Collecting Candy‘s post on Pocky’s Lovely Halloween series of years past. I’m not sure if the Halloween seasonal flavors were discontinued because of lack of interest, production costs, or if they just weren’t very tasty. Has anyone tried a pumpkin Pocky?
Photo taken in Aeon, Komatsu
Photo taken in Aeon, Komatsu
I also received a very interesting email from reader Lauren:
Subject: Valentinization of Halloween?
…I noticed something at my school. The girls and kitchen-aware boys have been talking all week about what Halloween treats they’re going to bring to share with their friends. Some even brought homemade cookies to us in the teacher’s room, Valentine’s Day style, with cute Halloween packaging.
This is [my coworker’s] bag of homemade treats from a student!
I found this fascinating, especially in light of last year’s Halloween engagement jewelry campaign. After she sent me this, I realized that I had some of my own photos of Halloween goodie bags that were being sold at grocery stores:
Halloween candy in gift bags. Kaji Mart, M’ZA, Kanazawa
Photo taken at Aeon, Komatsu.
Since trick-or-treating is not practiced here, these cannot have been meant for trick-or-treaters. Perhaps Halloween will go the way of Valentine’s Day, with friend-chocolate or gender-neutral sweets-exchange (versus the gendered Valentine’s Day and White Day practices of women giving chocolate the men on the former and men returning the favor on the latter.) Perhaps Halloween will be the new Christmas Eve, a holiday that retains its appeal to children but adds an element of romance for adults.
I know I’ve continued posting about Halloween after the fact, but I believe I have one more wrap-up post to finish up this year’s Halloween articles. If you have any comments or photos about how your region, workplace, or locals celebrated the holiday, send me an email at odorunara [AT] gmail [DOT] com or leave me a comment on this post.
See all the Halloween-related posts here.
Note
*Of course, in Kanazawa we have a “heartful parking garage” and a “heartful taxi” service; I’ve heard of some public schools having a “heartful helper” (sort of like a counselor).
I’ve never tried a pumpkin pocky and I don’t ever care to. I really couldn’t care less about any of this festive commercialism.
I do as always enjoy your breaking down of it all, though. 🙂 In response to your reader’s comment: I hadn’t noticed or heard any kids at the middle or elementary schools talking about or actually handing out stuff. But the idea doesn’t seem too far off.
Well in any case, Happy Halloween!
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My pleasure! I’m glad you like reading about it even though you hate the holiday. Hopefully I’ll be done with it soon. 😉
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Haha, naw I don’t hate the holiday. Keep up what you’re doing! Even if it’s about Halloween. 🙂
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Interesting about the ‘valentinization’ of Halloween. This year I’ve got a few sweets and stuff from my female students that I hadn’t before. The three big ‘imported’ festivals in Japan are christmas, valentine’s, and now halloween. The first two are very strongly linked with romance – in Japan at least – so maybe it just feels like a natural extension of that theme? It’s probably also worth nothing that there are no ‘native’ festivals that tick quite the same ‘cute, fun, romantic’ boxes, afaik.
As for ‘lovely halloween’ it’s nothing I’ve heard before. I suspect it’ll be ‘joyful’ soon enough, which sounds incredibly stylized even in native english. It does allow me to mention something I didn’t have time to from earlier in this series though.
I notice you’re comfortable translating プリン as ‘pudding’. Really? To me a pudding is either a generic name for dessert (‘You’ll get no pudding if you don’t finish your vegetables.’) or more specifically a steamed sponge affair, with christmas puddings being the same on steroids.
I’m still not sure how best to translate プリン because ‘pudding’ is obviously wrong (apologies). However, I’d naturally call it a creme brulee (accents as you like). So I’m translating a loan word into a loan word and it all gets a bit confusing. I’m also not sure if ‘creme brulee’ is a result of my hideously middle-class upbringing or not. What do you normal people call these things? 😉
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Giving sweets out at the office and school certainly isn’t that strange in the US, but I think you’re right in the assessment that the other imported holidays have filled a romantic/fun aspect in the culture, and Halloween is a candidate for following suit. Since Obon already fulfills the role of the time of year when the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead is thin, having Halloween as a spooky holiday as well seems a bit overkill.
Regarding the プリン/pudding translation: “pumpkin pudding” is commonly the in-house English translation for sweets that are kabocha-flavored purin. (See the first photo here.) As you said, purin is different kind of “pudding” than JELLO-style chocolate pudding and is known as custard pudding, baked custard, or creme caramel. So, in short, technically another type of pudding, just not the kinda we immediately call to mind.
PS: Define “normal people”!–I was also raised in the middle class and in the MidWest. My culinary expertise is a very recent acquisition and I’m entirely self-taught.
Thanks for the great comment!
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