Valentine's Day in Japan

I now have a second blog for my Visual Anthropology class. If you are interested, it is linked Here and also in a new bar addition on the right.

In other news, Thursday was Valentine's Day in Japan. The day was actually rather dull for me because I didn't give or get anything but since such is usually the case, I was not expecting Thursday to be any different. But my host sisters were very busy giving chocolate away to their male friends and to their boyfriends as well. In Japan, the girl gives the guy chocolates on Valentine's Day but the gifts aren't just for the men that they like. These gifts are for all the men in their lives. Some are meant for romantic relationships, but others are called "giri-choko" which is best described as "obligation chocolate" but in this case it has no negative connotations that the word "obligation" carries in english.

Now, I'm supposing that you're thinking, hey, that's great for the guy, but what about the girl? Doesn't she get flowers or something? No, in Japan it doesn't seem to be normal for anyone to get flowers on Valentine's Day and Valentine's Day is strictly for girls to give gifts to guys. A month from yesterday will be White Day, when all the guys who recieved chocolate now have to give something (usually chocolate) in return. I won't be getting anything on White Day either because I didn't give anything on Valentine's Day. Not that I have anyone to give anything to anyway. But, because Valentine's day is so different in Japan, I thought I'd leave you with a post about it for fun.

And on a totally unrelated subject, I gave up caffinated drinks (with the singular exception of hot chocolate because it's still officially winter here) for Lent. Completely irrelated to this statement, I have found myself eating chocolate more frequently. Valentine's Day therefore became a sad excuse to buy more chocolate and eat more sugar which I should not have done but did anyway.

And I know this is dangerous to say but to those of you in on the joke, it's late February and I'm still in the club this year. We're getting close to a record for me! Hee hee.