Christmas in Japan
(from the AFU & Urban Legends Archive - www.urbanlegends.com)
Financial Times, December 27, 1984:
'If Christmas cheer is easily assimilated into Japanese office parties
and department store sales promotions, it can still sometimes gain or
lose a little in translation. One Tokyo television channel ran as its
seasonal treat this week a film, innocuously titled "Merry Christmas, Mr
Lawrence," which is in fact a particularly harrowing account of life in
a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. And Simon Smithson, of brokers
Grieveson Grant, reports seeing festive decoration in a Tokyo department
store with a centrepiece of Santa Claus - crucified.'