White Day: The Valentine's Day Pay-back

On March 14, Japan celebrates White Day. White Day is the "pay-back" day for any guys who received chocolate or other gifts on Valentine's ....This is because, in Japan, Valentines is only observed by women.

There are two types of gifts given out by women on Valentine's Day:

1. Giri Choco, which is an obligatory gift for bosses and co-workers, or male friends. Women may have to buy 20 or 30 of these small boxes of candy. Fortunately, they are quite affordable. You can get a wonderful chocolate gift for only a few dollars.

2. Honmei Choco, which is the chocolate of love. This is often hand-made or more elaborate and given to the boyfriend or husband.

These chocolates put the American Valentine's candy makers to shame. Both the candy and the packaging are absolutely beautiful! They are works of art and taste fabulous. And the variety is endless.

I almost forgot to tell my dear readers "WHY" this is called White Day. I was told that initially white marshmallow candy was given as a gift. Sounds like as good a reason as any.

White Day is also celebrated in Korea where Black Day has been invented for those single folks that don't have someone to celebrate White Day with ... Black Day sounds pretty mornful but it was actually given that name because these singles go out in groups and eat together. They have white noodles with black bean sauce, thus Black Day.

In Japan, gifts are a very important part of the culture. When someone gives you a gift, it "obliges" the receiver to reciprocate. And the return gift has to be "sanbai gaeshi" which means "thrice the return." What that means is that those poor guys that got some chocolates have to come up with a better gift on White Day than they received on Valentine's....and it should be about three times more expensive. I'm thinking of giving Greg a $15,000 box of bon bons. I've got my eye on a new car...