“Snowman” USA vs. Japan (March 6, 2003) in Japanese

We’ve found interesting differences between “snowmen” in the US and in Japan ! See photos.

In Japan "snowman" means Yuki-Daruma, and also Yuki-Otoko (The Abominable Snowman). Yuki-Daruma has two parts such as a head and a body. Usually, its eyes, nose, and mouth are made of some rocks. As the Japanese snowman is “DARUMA-DAISHI”, he does not have arms. Sometimes, kids put a bucket on his head as a hat. I wonder why a Japanese snowman became only the Yuki-Daruma, “Daruma.” Why isn’t there a Yuki-Ningyou (doll)?

In the US , the “snowman” has three parts which represent the head, body, and legs. Also, the snowman has two slender arms. The eyes are made of charcoal; the nose, a carrot; the arms, tree branches; and the mouth, rocks. The snowman is decorated with buttons, scarves, gloves, hats (many kinds of hats, a bucket), etc. People often adorn the snowman using paints.

Note 1: A plastic snowman has big arms as you can see in the pic of Snowman 6.

Note 2: “snowman” sounds like “postman” ; there could be “snow-women” too. “snowman” could be “snowperson”?

Note 3: One of our friends in Japan gave us info. on the “Japanese snowman.” It was very kind of him to provide us with this info. since we had to double-check what it is.

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