Valentine’s Day and White Day in Japan

I held off writing about Valentine’s Day in February because I wanted to experience the partner day of White Day and reflect on them together.

Get ready for a shock: in Japan Valentine’s Day is for men. I repeat, Valentine’s Day is a day to give men, yes, MEN, chocolates and dinners. One of my younger male students was explaining to me that during his school days, Valentine’s Day made all the boys hold their breath…and hope that a desirable girl presented them with chocolates. For some reason that I cannot possibly understand, in Japan the woman has to make the brave first move on Valentine’s Day. Apparently sometimes it works out great, but my student told me that somehow he always received chocolate from girls who did not capture his interest. Que sera. (He did confess that he would happily eat the chocolate anyway.) He also explained that sometimes his friends would explain a lack of gift receiving by saying that, ‘I’m not Christian, so I don’t celebrate Valentine’s Day.” (Naturally this surprised me since in the West we don’t exactly associate Valentine’s Day with religion. I believe this belief in Japan stems from the fact that Valentine’s Day is often referred to as “St. Valentine’s Day” and perhaps as a Western holiday it seems Christian by default.)

Around Valentine’s Day, displays popped up in stores with “Valentine’s Day” (or “St Valentine’s Day) written in English on banners. The displays contained lots of boxes of varying quality chocolates, some very expensive, some not. Also, to my delight, baking supplies, like chocolate chips, powdered sugar, and decorative candies, suddenly exploded. I was finally able to buy a Japanese cake mix and I could have even bought truffle mixes, muffin mixes, and chocolate dip mixes. It seems that Japanese women can bake, but don’t do it with the same year-round fervor that we do back home. (Like most Japanese households, we lack an oven, but fortunately our microwave has a “caki” (cake) setting that bakes. I am a happy girl now that I can bake brownies, cookies, and casseroles!) I think that normally in Japan most baked goods, including beautiful--but tiny--birthday cakes, are purchased from one of the million French patisseries.

Although only men in Japan receive gifts on Valentine’s Day, several of my students, knowing that Valentine’s Day is for “everyone” in the US, gave me chocolates. My little 8 year old girl student gave me a lovely assortment of butter cookies and chocolate almonds from a bakery, perfectly packaged in a lovely red box. Female coworkers very commonly give chocolates to the men they work with, but Jim only got one chocolate. Hee, hee. He didn’t suffer too much, though, because I treated him on Valentine’s Day to a special homemade dinner of paella and chocolate mousse. (Of course, he had to whip the cream for the mousse which is no small feat given that we don’t have a mixer!)

So what about the women? That’s where White Day, exactly one month later on March 14, comes in. None of my students were able to explain the origin of White Day or why it is called “White Day” (in English). Certainly everyone I’ve talked to about this has been surprised that we don’t have White Day in the US. The importance of White Day is that women finally get a treat. According to some of my students, the typical gift on white day is marshmallows. However, since many people apparently don’t care for marshmallows, chocolate is becoming increasingly popular. Also I am told that women often receive larger gifts like jewelry or clothes on White Day. (But all the women I’ve talked to so far didn’t seem to get anything special.) I teach a pair of housewives and when I asked last week what their husbands were going to do for them on White Day, they laughed and said “Nothing!” (They did say that they’re husbands said they could buy something for themselves. Humph. Come on men.)

Interestingly, Jim discovered that White Day was started by Confectioner’s companies-- namely marshmallow companies. It is apparently celebrated in several Asian countries including South Korea, Taiwan and China.

Here is what Wikipedia says about White day in Japan:
In Japan, Valentine's Day is observed by females who present chocolate gifts (either store-bought or handmade), usually to a male, as an expression of love, courtesy or social obligation. The handmade chocolate is usually preferred by the receiver, because it is a sign that the receiving male is the girl's "only one". On White Day, the converse happens: males who received a honmei-choco (本命チョコ?, "chocolate of love") or giri-choco (義理チョコ?, "courtesy chocolate") on Valentine's Day are expected to return the favor by giving gifts, usually more expensive. Traditionally, popular White Day gifts are cookies, jewellery, white chocolate, white lingerie and marshmallows.[1] Sometimes the term sanbai gaeshi (三倍返し?, literally, "thrice the return") is used to describe the generally recited rule that the return gift should be two to three times the cost of the Valentine's gift.[2]

Reading this passage about obligatory gifts reminds me of one of my student’s complaints that because several co-workers bought expensive chocolates for her husband for Valentine’s day, she now had to buy them Godiva chocolate (which is very expensive here). She knew how much they had spent and had to spend more and felt annoyed by this. Whew. I’m glad I don’t have to keep up with such strict social obligations!

After feigned indifference about White Day Jim actually did take me to a French restaurant we love here, but, alas, it was booked out on Saturday night. We instead took a chance on a Mexican restaurant and learned the hard lesson that when not in California, Mexico, the South, or Southwest of the US, steer clear of so called Mexican food! Ugh. My only comment here is that cream cheese is no substitute for sour cream!

White Day was on a Sunday and we planned a little outing to Kurama, an onsen (hot spring), in the Northern outskirts of Kyoto. Our friends, Jeff and Mery, joined us and we all rode the train to Kibune, a stop just south of Kurama, and enjoyed touring a shrine in the woods of Kibune. We also had a lovely lunch of soba (buckwheat noodles) and yuba (a Kansai region special and delicious tofu dish).

After lunch, we followed a hiking trail over a hill and through a wooded temple. The path was a couple of miles long and involved lots of stairs. I really enjoyed our hike because I haven’t gotten to see much nature since we’ve been in Japan. (Kyoto does have lots of gardens, thankfully, but it’s still a city.) The trail was through old growth that reminded me a bit of redwoods, though our guide book describes them as cryptomeria trees. (According to Wikipedia, these trees are called sugi, or Japanese cedar, but are actually related to cypress.)

Oddly, hiking conditions didn’t discourage many Japanese women from wearing their miniskirts and stiletto heeled boots. (We were so astonished that women would dress in this way for going to the woods that we started clandestinely taking pictures of footwear sported on the trip.) I know it was White Day, but it seems there is no limit to the lengths Japanese women will go for fashion!!

After hiking up to the mountain temple of Kurama, we hit the onsen for a nice hot soak. This was my first onsen, but I have been to our neighborhood sento (public bath) several times, and am familiar with the routine of washing at the shower before getting in the communal bath. (This is all done with no clothes on, btw, which sometimes is a little awkward for Westerners to get used to. The baths are always divided by gender, so it’s really not so bad.) Actually, it was funny, I have become so accustomed to scrubbing every inch of my body very thoroughly and slowly as everyone else does, but at the onsen I think I scrubbed more than anyone which was a first for me. Normally at the sento, I will scrub everywhere, wash my hair twice and condition it only to discover that a woman beginning her shower at the same time is still on her first limb. I never knew that the ability to deep clean was an acquired skill. Anyway, the onsen was great because it was outdoor and featured a view of the mountain. Nothing like relaxing in hot springs in the nude while gazing at nature. Ahh.

Best. White Day. Ever. :)