The 14th of March marks the ‘White Day’. In Japanese culture, women, especially students, give chocolates on Valentine’s Day to a boy they care for. Also, girls often give chocolates to people close to them without any romantic attachment, this chocolate is called ‘Giri-Choco’ which means ‘Obligatory Chocolate’. A month after Valentine’s is White Day, which means it’s time for the boy to return the gift, this act is called ‘Sanbai-gaeshi’, meaning ‘Triple Return’. As the name says, the boy has to give a gift three times more valuable than the girl’s gift.
No one knows for sure how White Day appeared, still, in the midst of a sea of theories there’s one that sticks out. It says in 1965, a marshmallow maker advertised men should repay Valentine’s chocolates with marshmallows. So, for some time this day was called the ‘Marshmallow Day’.
When chocolate companies realized the potential income this day offered, they come up with the idea of selling white chocolate, so as to incite men to present women with white chocolate along with other presents.
This holiday is also celebrated in Korea and is gaining popularity in Hong-Kong, in spite of being just a day of marketing purpose. The first time I heard about this holiday was on ‘Love Hina’, a Japanese manga (or comic book or graphic novel) and I felt it was a great thing Portugal doesn’t care about it, or else I’d spent a lot of money (I’m lying, I wouldn’t receive chocolates on Valentine’s, so it’d be the same).
No one knows for sure how White Day appeared, still, in the midst of a sea of theories there’s one that sticks out. It says in 1965, a marshmallow maker advertised men should repay Valentine’s chocolates with marshmallows. So, for some time this day was called the ‘Marshmallow Day’.
When chocolate companies realized the potential income this day offered, they come up with the idea of selling white chocolate, so as to incite men to present women with white chocolate along with other presents.
This holiday is also celebrated in Korea and is gaining popularity in Hong-Kong, in spite of being just a day of marketing purpose. The first time I heard about this holiday was on ‘Love Hina’, a Japanese manga (or comic book or graphic novel) and I felt it was a great thing Portugal doesn’t care about it, or else I’d spent a lot of money (I’m lying, I wouldn’t receive chocolates on Valentine’s, so it’d be the same).
2 comments:
If there is a single country that "fabricates" as much traditions or more than the USA, it must be Japan... It has more "this-or-that days" than some two or three countries combined, many of them "comerce related"...
I already knew about this, from more or less the same sources. Nice text!
Lol. I liked your last comment, Kilfer. Yes, little do we need new holidays that simply force us to spend money on meaningless gifts. Besides, every day could be "give chocolate day." Of course in my book, it'd have to be vegan and fair trade ;)
Unlike M, I didn't know about this traditon so thanks for sharing!
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