Gaijin Tonic

In the West, the notion of going to Kentucky Fried Chicken for Christmas dinner is considered profoundly depressing. Sitting alone in a soulless junk-food restaurant on Christmas day, forlornly chewing on oily chicken wings, is the last resort of the most desperately lonely, friendless, bedsit-dweller.
In Japan, however, it’s a national craze! Folks form long lines at Christmas, shivering outside in the cold, waiting for hours to get their hands on a seasonal party bucket.
Roast turkey is as rare as rocking-horse shit in Japan, and untried by most Japanese people, so many assume fried chicken is the next best thing.

I can sort of see the thinking behind the association of Christmas and Kentucky Fried Chicken- their logo is the right colours- red and white, and their mascot is a jolly, portly man with a white beard. But still, KFC?

When I discovered that Tesco, the massive British supermarket chain, had recently opened a few stores in Japan, I decided to investigate, driven by perverse curiosity and a homesick hunger for baked beans and biscuits. I went to an obscure Tokyo station called Meidaimae, where I got lost trying to find the place, and laughed at my own insanity for going on a lengthy and complicated mission to find something as dull and unappealing as a tin of baked beans. Eventually I found the place, the Tesco sign looking very incongruous in a Japanese suburb. I was pleased to discover a shelf of goods imported from Britain inside, gathering dust. Pretty authentic stuff, as you can see from the dented tin of beans below.

Here’s a link to the Tesco website, if you want to go yourself.