Happy (late) Valentine’s Day! It’s Miranda today, writing about Valentine’s Day in Japan.
Valentine’s Day is a newer holiday for Japan (beginning in the 1950s), but there are still traditions. These traditions have largely been dictated by department stores. It’s so interesting for me to see how advertising created the holiday!
Here, the girl in a relationship is meant to buy her sweetheart chocolate and useful gifts. Women are also supposed to buy male family members and coworkers chocolate. The three types of chocolate are giri choco, honmei choco, and tomo choco.
Giri choco is “obligation chocolate.” It’s cheap and cannot be seen as romantic. It also seems like a great way to friendzone someone.
Honmei choco is romantic. I only gave out honmei choco this year. Honmei choco is also seen as a great way of performing kokuhaku, 告白, the act of confessing your feelings! Also, if the other person reciprocates, you are officially dating. No situation-ships here in Japan!
Tomo choco is for all the single ladies! It’s given to your friends as a galantine's day treat. I’ll be giving some belated tomo choco I brought from the U.S. to my new friend Yuna san.
You forgot the most important kind of chocolate: jibun choco! Jibun choco is the chocolate you buy for yourself to eat! -Nick
For our Valentine’s Day, I wanted to try following Japanese traditions, so I went on my own little adventure to make Valentine’s Day special for Nick. After figuring out how to order pizza from Dominos for dinner, I walked to around Hirakatashi visiting seven different stores. The first thing Nick does every time we enter a new grocery store is search for new Kit Kat flavors, and he particularly enjoyed the peach flavor we found. I finally found the peach Kit Kats right when it began to hail!
Along my journey, I also went to a mattress and pillow store. Our Japanese beanbag pillows aren’t very comfortable, and I wanted to get Nick something nicer. At the entryway to the store, I stepped into some slippers and onto the raised store area, one of the first times I’ve experienced this facet of Japanese culture and hospitality. Then, I tried to explain my pillow needs to an employee, while trying to understand some very technical facts about pillows … in Japanese. Fortunately, the owner of the store arrived and spoke perfect English. When he discovered that the pillow was a Valentine’s gift, he tied red ribbon and a flower around the pillow and stapled a little Christmas themed “for you” tag onto the wrapping. After that, I exited the store, but not before bowing back and forth at least five times to the pillow store’s owner and employee. I find that ありがとうございます (thank you) is the most useful phrase I know.
I want to be able to engage in Japanese while I’m in Japan. It feels far more respectful, however, until I reach that skill level, I am thankful for kind people who speak English.
My little adventure may not seem like too much of a challenge. It wouldn’t be in the United States, but here I struggle doing activities independently. I’m not able to use my phone off Wi-Fi, making navigating very fun, and I struggle to speak even very basic Japanese. I’m proud that I figured out how to order and pick up a pizza, buy groceries and gifts, and go out on my own in Japan. What made me most happy though was Nick’s surprise and happiness.
So that’s Valentine’s Day in Japan! It may seem pretty stressful to be a girl on Valentine’s Day here, but it’s not all roses for the guy. A month later, on March 14, White Day, any guy receiving gifts is supposed to buy the girl three times the number of gifts she got him.
I really love Japan’s Valentine’s Day traditions, and I think I might adopt them for myself, even when I come back home. Maybe I’ll even get Nick to celebrate White Day with me every year too…
Nick and I love you all!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
-Miranda
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Nick better make you a pie on White day.
Amazing how different cultures celebrate events! I wonder if they know the story of St. Valentine?? Sounds like they have commercialized this to the max.
If one is to go overboard on gifts, why not Valentines!
I am impressed how independent and courageous you two have become in adjusting.
PopPop is just catching me up on your pictures/posts. I was reminded of an open air market I went to in Germany when the shopkeeper was tormenting me...I finally got wise to him when I looked in his twinkling(devilish) eyes. I put my hands on my hips and switched to English and said something to the effect of " You should be ashamed of yourself!"He roared with laughter...I think that my mother might have been visiting with us then and I may have been a little perturbed with her and Tom b/c it was a wine fest and I felt they had a few too many samples....it has been too many years so the details are a little fuzzy!!