White Day

On Valentine's Day, girls present chocolates to boys in Japan. 

Japanese people like Matsuri 祭-festival, which gives us an opportunity to strengthen community's unity and blow off steam and forget daily, perhaps modest, perhaps suffocating life. In the nineteen sixties, Japanese confectionery industry discovered potential demand through everyday commercial efforts, and Valentine's Day became a large-scale social annual event in Japan. Japanese style Valentine's Day is now some sort of Matsuri.

Why people present chocolates

People give chocolates for communication which can be classified into four classes;

Question

Devotion

Association

Obligation

The first two classes must be understandable even to someone not familiar with Japanese society. Chocolate for a Question purpose asks, "Will you love me?" Devotion chocolate means "I love you". And the latter two classes might be very Japanese things. Chocolate for Association is given to friends; girls-to-girls/girls-to-boys and so on. A lot of people present chocolates on Valentine's Day in order to fulfill their Obligation; to bosses/co-workers/"friends".

Answer to the chocolate

Girls present chocolates, and so men have to answer it after a month, on the fourteenth of March. Japanese men give girls white chocolates or marshmallows or candies or something sweet, or something else in return. "How romantic?""How much?" Men will be judged and evaluated on this day, so men have to be extra careful with the gifts. That's what is called "White Day". There is a phrase "three times (the price of chocolate) in return". So romantic, so stimulative, right? The original Valentine's Day is deeply related to love, but sometimes Japanese version is not.

See what it cost me this year.

Makiko Odawara is a goddess. It took me only hours to finish this card. Concise 112 pages, only 2,700 yen. Beautiful.

Times change and we with them

Japanese style Valentine's Day may have worked in the old days, the time of shy and modest Japanese. It became popular because it was an opportunity to tell their own feelings. But as I described, now it is not so comfortable for both sides. They say that Halloween surpassed Valentine's Day in market size last year. Halloween also became Japanese festival recently, and as a festival it's better than Valentine's Day. There are no feelings, no obligations. People only need to have fun in an unusual outfit.

Japanese chocolates and the other confections are very good to the eye. And they taste good. Why don't you try and taste them?

The wind shines, while Japanese men are thinking hard about the return gifts.