So White Day has come and gone. It was March 14, and it occurs exactly one month after Valentine's Day. White Day was a new concept for me, as we don't have it in North America. This year marks my second White Day in Japan, and it was basically the same as last year.
The very next day after Valentine's Day, White Day ads go up in stores. Where Valentine's Day colours are red and white, White Day colours seem to be largely white (go figure...), with accents of blue. This "holiday" was invented in 1978 by the National Confectionary Industry Association, who recognized a retail opportunity. Not wanting to leave the Valentine's gifts from women to men unreturned, they saw a need to found White Day. This need is based on the notion of "giri", or duty. It seems that it is impossible to just give a gift in Japan, it will always be returned, somehow, some way. When you just "give a gift", the recipient makes a mental note of it, and will very likely attempt to pay you back in the near future, with a gift of equal or greater value. This aspect of the culture is hard to get used to for someone like me, who just likes to give gifts. I hesitate to do it now, because I know the other person will feel obligated (probably obligated x 10, because I'm foreign!) to return the gift. Any way, Valentine's Day/White Day is a perfect example of this. On Valentine's Day, giri choco (duty chocolate) is given from girls to boys, and then on White Day, those boys have to return the favour in form of sweet confections. In addition, it's expected that the boy gives a nicer chocolate in return. This is the rule of sanbai gaeshi, a rule that dictates the return gift on White Day should be worth 2-3 times the value of the original gift.
So as you can see, the candy makers have capitalized on the social obligation the Japanese have to always return a gift. This day is so pointless it makes me laugh. It is clearly not as popular as Valentine's Day, because the target of the ads are all male, so there are no "make your own candy" supplies and all the White Day gifts come pre-wrapped. There is no genuine feeling here, just obligation. Sigh.
That being said, this day can also be the start of a new love. A boy in love may make his move on White Day. On Valentine's Day, a girl might've let it be known that she is interested in a special boy by giving him honmei choco. If this boy is really shy, he might wait the whole month to show his interest by returning the gift to the girl. Crazy right? I don't know how often this really happens, or if it is just legend, but it still amazes me. Also on this day, a boy might declare his feelings with chocolate for a girl. This is what all my students hope for, secretly. Again, I'm not really sure how often this happens in real life.
White Day is celebrated in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and China. In Korea, they also have black day, April 14, where single people get together and eat white noodles with black bean sauce. The people who celebrate black day, are the people who did not receive or give any chocolates on White Day or Valentine's Day. To my knowledge, there is no equivalent day in Japan, although I wouldn't doubt that it could be become popular in the future.
At a girls' school, White Day isn't really a big thing, for one thing, it falls at the end of the school year. So students may not be at school or they are busy studying for final exams. The other big reason is that there are no boys. The students mainly exchange chocolates with their friends and teachers. If the students are lucky, their male teachers may return the chocolate gifts to the students. At my school it seems to depend on the teacher, some of the guys have nothing to do with it, whereas others are good sports about it. Naturally, I don't expect much action on White Day. In fact, this year I forgot it was White Day until I received some chocolates from teachers. On Valentine's Day, the other ALT and I spread lots of Valentine's love by passing out chocolate kisses to students and all the teachers. So, on White Day, some of the teachers returned the favour. I received things from our school nurses, a few English teachers and two Japanese teachers. I was very surprised. I ended up with a surprisingly big White Day haul.
But still no honmei chocolate. No love declarations for me. Sigh. Maybe next year?
No comments:
Post a Comment