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Japanese Valentine's Day An Amusing Cultural Twist

By: Toshi Umekoji

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Exchanging Valentine's Day gifts is really popular in the Western society, but it is also widely accepted in East Asia. In Japan, Korea, and China (especially Taiwan and Hong Kong), women and men also observe Valentine's day without any religious connotations, and it is quite an important event for them. However, there is quite a interesting cultural twist in their Valentine's Day celebration. In this article, I talk only about the Japanese Valentine's Day, but similar changes can be seen in other countries, too.

In Japan, celebrating Valentine's Day originally began among high school girls in 1970's, although there were some failed efforts on the part of Japanese chocolate companies to introduce the holiday before then. The high school girls decided they would present chocolates to boys whom they adored. At the time, this was quite novel, and a courageous move among Japanese girls when there were still many women choosing the more traditional "arrangement" way to find a husband. As the high school girls getting older, this Valentine's Day "tradition" was gradually expanded, and by the late 70's, it was the major event of the year for women of all ages. This was the day that a woman could send chocolate as a token of love to a man. Even among married couples, the wife would give chocolates to her husband. Eventually, women began giving chocolates to male friends and even to their co-workers as expression of thanks.

As the Valentine's Day gift-giving became more popular in Japan, every man was dreaming to earn at least one chocolate gift on Valentine's Day -- but of course it wouldn't always happen. Some men got 20 gifts, and others got none. Valentine's Day became a beauty contest for the men in which the women decided who was most "attractive. However, this created real problems in the close-knit Japanese work places. If one male employee got 20 chocolate gifts from women at the work, but other men got none, this would cause a real strain in the workplace. How could the female workers solve this problem? They created a chocolate named "obligatory" chocolate ("Giri-choco" in Japanese). This chocolate had the word "obligation" pressed on the surface of the chocolate, but from the outside, the wrapper appeared the same. The women at the office would all chip in the cash to buy these chocolates and send them to the less popular men in the office so that, at least on the surface, these men wouldn't have to lose face.

Another cultural twist is "White Day.It falls on March 14th, a month after Valentine's. On that day, a man will present a "love" token to the woman who sent him chocolate on Valentine's day. White Day is in fact just the ploy of chocolate companies, but its popularity zoomed up instantly as many women considered it was unfair to just send chocolate on Valentine's day and get nothing back. At the beginning, men would just send some sweets back to the sender, but gradually women began to expect to receive more expensive presents in return. This was expected, since man's status is still higher than that of women in Japan and Japanese society still expects a man to take care of a woman.

Regrettably, this new tradition also went to too far. A "popular" superior at the office now needed to prepare rather large amount of money to buy return gifts to the women in the office, rather than simply using that amount on his wife! Some clever women took advantage of the situation, and gave aways large numbers of cheap chocolates to as many men as they could find, and then expected to get some more costly return gifts. If she did not get anything from a certain man, then bad rumors, saying the man was stingy, would be circulated in the office. No man wishes for that, as the reputation is very important in Japanese culture.

Although Valentine's Day is still important and 20% of yearly chocolate sales are generated just for the one day, there is some feeling of discontent among the Japanese. According to one of several recent poles, as both men and women mature, their animosity toward Valentine's day increases. It is fun as high school kids, but then it becomes a mandatory social burden as they become a part of mainstream society. Although I do not think that Valentine's Day will disappear from Japanese society, since it has a huge commercial importance as Christmas does for the Japanese (or, in that matter, for the US) economy, I see there will be further transformation of Valentine's Day in Japan. Probably in 20 yrs., you may not even recognize Japanese Valentine's Day as the same celebration as we have in the Western World.

Article Source: http://depositarticles.com/

Bungo Osawa loves chocolate, especially organic dark chocolate truffles. He is always looking for new organic dark chocolate, and experimenting with new chocolate recipes made with raw cacao beans. You can find his favorite organic chocolate truffles at: www.GourmetOrganicChocolateTruffle.com. Please also check his Valentine's day gift site: www.squidoo.com/ValentinesIdeas.

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