Halloween time has come around again, and while students at St. Mary’s International School engage in traditional Halloween pastimes such as dressing up in quirky costumes, one integral element of Halloween trumps them all: candies. With the traditions of trick-or-treating going back to the times of the Ancient Greeks, having a sweet tooth has been relevant for the popular holiday since antiquity. In Japan, the tradition and Halloween itself are a relatively new phenomenon, with the observance of the latter not being commonplace until the early 2000s. This has not prevented Tokyo cites from showing a clear preference towards certain brands in recent times.
The tradition of giving out candy on Halloween is actually pretty modern, although Halloween itself is much older. Over 2000 years ago, the Celts(modern day Irish and Scottish people) celebrated something called Samhain, and they believed spirits could cross into the living world on this day. People left food offerings outside for those spirits. This turned into the earliest form of trick or treating during medieval Europe, where the children would knock on doors on Oct. 31st, which they asked for small breads. This is the ancestor of trick or treating, and instead of candy it was bread. Then, during the 1800s the Irish and Scottish immigrants in America brought those cultures, and they started giving out candies instead. They were things like candy corns, toffee, licorice and hard candies. By the 1970s, they switched into giving out mini chocolate bars, such as snickers, reeses, m&ms and so on.
Popular Halloween candies around the world are mostly chocolates, such as Reese’s, Snickers, and M&M’s. Despite that, most Halloween candies in Japan taste fresher and are more unique. For example, Japanese specialties such as Ramune and apple cinnamon sweets are offered to the children when they go trick-or-treating.
Overall, while Halloween has ancient roots, it has evolved over time. From Celtic bread offerings to modern candy bars and Japan’s own treats, the spirit of sharing sweets continues to unite people around the world each October.
