Happy Valentine’s Day, and White Day, …and Black Day
Valentine’s Day is a big deal here. About a week ago stands selling chocolate popped up in front of all the grocery stores. I took this picture yesterday, but I should have taken it today, as it was mobbed. I’m not sure why, but all the signs I’ve seen for Valentine’s Day are exclusively in English (usually English words are transcribed into Katakana).
How Valentine’s Day works here is a bit different from the US:
The Japanese celebrate St. Valentine’s day in a rather unique fashion. Women give the men gifts of chocolate as well as other gifts.
These gifts of chocolate are divided into two types: giri choco (obligatory chocolate) and honmei choco (chocolate for the man the woman is serious about). Giri choco is given by women to their superiors at work as well as to other male co-workers. It is not unusual for a woman to buy 20 to 30 boxes of this type of chocolate for distribution around the office as well as to men that she has regular contact with.
Needless to say, the approach of Valentine’s Day is something that department stores and shops look forward to and promote with zeal because of its potential for increased sales. Large displays featuring chocolate usually with heart-shaped displays start to grace the floors of department stores from mid-January or so.
The payback comes, with interest, on White Day:
While all of this may seem quite one-sided, confectioners in Japan - never ones to miss an opportunity to sell more - took advantage of the Japanese feelings of obligation and created “White Day” in 1980 to help assuage the guilt feelings of those poor obligated males who received chocolate on Valentine’s Day. On March 14th, exactly one month after Valentine’s Day, men who were lucky enough to receive gifts of chocolate have the chance to return the favor by giving the women who gave them gifts of chocolate a more expensive box of chocolate or sweets (for some reason or other, these return gifts seem to be priced slightly higher than those the women purchase).
According to Wikipedia, “There are many theories about the origins of White Day, but according to one, the holiday began in 1965, when a marshmallow maker started marketing to men that they should pay back the women who gave them chocolate and other gifts with marshmallows. Originally it was called Marshmallow Day, and later it was changed to White Day.”
White Day is catching on in other parts of Asia, and the South Koreans have added their own, darker sensibility to the sequence of holidays by creating Black Day, on April 14: “The idea is that those who didn’t give or receive gifts on Valentine’s Day or White Day, can get together and eat Jjajangmyeon (짜장면); Korean noodles with black bean sauce (hence the name) to commiserate their singledom.”
or direct from 
