WHITE DAY – THE RETURNING OF WOMEN’S LOVE

Now that Valentine’s Day is over, we can finally stop feeling that awful feeling of being single on a day that is all about the couples. At least, that is what is going on in much of the world.

However, Japanese culture has a day that takes place one month after Valentine’s Day with a similar tradition but a different twist: White Day.

White Day’s origins come from a marketing strategy for companies to sell more marshmallows, one that later turned into a romantic holiday.

In Japan, Valentine’s Day is the day where females give chocolates to their peers, but the kind of chocolate they give belongs to three distinct categories. 

There’s Honmei Choco (굶츱　ΑηⅣ), known as “true love” chocolate that is a chocolate women give to men they have strong romantic feelings towards. The choco is often handmade. Then, there’s Giri Choco (義잿　ΑηⅣ), or “fake love” chocolate, which is not as malicious as it sounds. Fake love chocolate is chocolate that women give to their families and friends to show their appreciation and nonromantic love. This chocolate also has been known as obligatory chocolate, as it is expected for women to give them to the other appropriate men in their life.The last of the common choco types is Yuri Choco (ζκ  ΑηⅣ) – the chocolate that women give to other women – often called “friend” choco. 

After the Japanese women have given their chocolate to the men on Valentine’s Day, the men have a month to plan what they will give back to any women they received Honmei Choco from. The gifts are never chocolate and are usually a type of candy, marshmallowy treat, or a tangible, non-food gift. However, the men have to follow the rule of sanbai gaeshi (힛굡럿ㅇ), which means “triple return”: They are expected to provide gifts with a total value 2-to-3 times the value of the gifts they have received from the female.

For many years, this was a social obligation that would cause the men to go into financial crisis over these gifts, and often would make them sick from the stress of the social shunning they would receive if they fail this task.

This rule has since become less of a social obligation, but some men still uphold the tradition if they want to impress the female in question, which can be seen as an extra romantic gesture. 

White Day, then, can be seen as a romantic day or just another day where Japanese people give others gifts. This holiday is important to their culture, as it gets mentioned in most pieces of fiction in Japan. It’s much different than what we do in America, making it interesting to watch, and see how it affects the culture.