Differences between Japanese and Western Valentine’s Day
In the West, Valentine’s Day is well established as an opportunity to confess love to that one special person in your life and shower them with affection, which usually means showering them with gifts or planning to take them on the perfect date.
It is usually the man who is expected to do something special to their ladies to express their love and celebrate the special day.
However, Valentine’s Day in Japan goes down very differently.
Japanese Women express their love with chocolate on Valentine’s Day in Japan
Valentine’s Day in Japan is a day when women can express their feelings to the man by giving him chocolate.
It is said that this first started when a Japanese confectionery company advertised chocolate gifts from women to men on Valentine’s Day. A campaign was launched in department stores and gradually taking the form of the current Valentine’s Day in Japan.
Initially, it was a day for women to give chocolate to the men they loved as a way of expressing their feelings.
However, due to Japanese culture’s emphasis on giri (obligation/duty), chocolate was later given to male bosses and men in the workplace as well. This is known as GIRI-CHOCO (obligatory gift chocolate). It is very Japanese.
Types of Japanese Valentine’s Day chocolate
Chocolates given on Valentine’s Day in Japan are called by many names, including Giri-Choko. It depends on the type of relationship the woman has with the recipient.
Honmei-choco – Honmei (本命) means Favourite. These sweet treats are often hand-made for an extra personal touch and given exclusively to a significant other, whether a boyfriend, husband, or lover.
Tomo-choco – Tomo (友) means Friends. Typically expensive and elaborate chocolate gifted between female friends, and enjoyed away from the men!
Jibun-choco – Jibun (自分) means Myself. You buy chocolate and gift yourself for a well-deserved little treat.
Most Japanese Women don’t know the Western Style Valentine’s Day
Most Japanese women think that Valentine’s Day is a day for women to confess their love to men. I was one of them.
I am married to an Australian man and I was surprised when my husband offered to take me out to dinner on Valentine’s Day during our first year of marriage.
What a woman-friendly Valentine’s Day in the West!
Of course I never mentioned to my husband that in Japan it is a day for women to give gifts to men.
Japanese Valentine’s Day can make men feel most miserable
Valentine’s Day in Japan may be a good day for men, as it is not a day for men to do something for women.
However, Valentine’s Day in Japan is also a miserable and painful day for most men. Let me take my brother as an example.
My brother is calm and reserved. He listens well and does not like to fight with others. I like my brother and we always went shopping, to the movies and on trips together.
In this way, he is the best brother I have ever had, but to the average Japanese woman, he seems too safe and uninteresting.
He has never received chocolate from a Japanese woman on Valentine’s Day, not in junior high school, not in high school and not in university.
How did my brother feel about going to school on Valentine’s Day morning?
He came home every year with a calm face, but my mother and I did not know what to say to my brother when he got home.
So much so that Valentine’s Day in Japan has become a major event for single people, a day when the difference between the popular and the unpopular becomes obvious.
My brother, who was completely unpopular with Japanese women, married a kind Japanese woman and receives chocolates from his wife and daughter every Valentine’s Day and they all lived happily ever after.
What do you give back on Valentine’s Day?
Just because Japanese men don’t have to spend money on Valentine’s Day in Japan doesn’t mean they get away with not reciprocating for the rest of the year.
There is a day in Japan called White Day.
I will introduce what White Day is all about in tomorrow’s blog.
Would you like to celebrate Valentine’s Day with a Japanese woman ?
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