Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day in Japan is different to that in England. At home it is a mostly anonymous affair with a myriad cards, ending in question-marks, being posted internally via makeshift postboxes in schools. In Japan, the direction of "love" flows from the girls to the boys, mostly in the form of dark chocolate. Girls will go up to the guys to whom they are attracted and openly present them with their gift, in the hope that they have reciprocal feelings. Due to this one-sided nature, White Day was invented to be held exactly one month later on March 14th. At this time the guys that received gifts should give back in the form of marshmallows and white chocolate, even if they are not interested.

In class this morning we all received chocolate Euro money from Yoshimastu-sensei, and some white chocolate balls with dried-strawberry centres from Watanabe-sensei. Kanashima-san produced an assortment of chocolates at lunch time, before giving James and I a lift back to the dormitory as she was taking Lauma there anyway.

In the afternoon/evening I taught my four classes, of whom I am now becoming slightly fond. We gave Haruka-chan and her mother a lift again; she's so cute! Then Eri (with whom I do Aikido) from the second class gave me a Valentine's Day gift. She made clear to me that it was a giri gift, i.e. an obligation, and not a love-based offering, which would have been odd as she is only ten. Still, it was good to know that I'd been remembered by some of my class. Unfortunately that was the only one, though I thought I heard my third all-girl class saying that they hadn't been told I was coming (at least I'll pretend that's what I heard). Noriko also gave me a little chocolate as well, which was nice.