Happy White Day to you all! Today is the Japanese equivalent of Valentine’s Day, it’s basically the same here as it is in the States, more of a focus on the chocolates than the flowers though. On Valentine’s day here in the land of the rising sun, the women give chocolates to the men, so this is the reciprocation of that for the ladies. Really you would think they would do this on Valentine’s Day and then make up an equivalent day for the men later to keep with the rest of the world’s Valentine’s tradition, but no, it’s backward. Japan is a very marketing based society in general, worse than the States in my opinion, so to me it feels like they made this up as a second chance to sell the left overs from V-Day, but at least I get to gorge on candy twice…
Here’s an odd tidbit, chocolates are also exchanged at work. At my wife’s school all the teachers had to buy chocolate to give to the male teachers on V-Day, and the males will be doing the same today. From what I understand this takes place in offices and most other places of work. Double the money you have to spend with two holidays, then double it again for work and your personal life.
I’ll be heading out to the store in a bit to pick up something for the wife, take this chance to do the same for the woman in your life, tell her it’s White Day and score yourself some brownie points.
