The Japanese celebrate St. Valentine's day in a rather unique fashion. Only women give away chocolate to men they care about. It is not unusual for them to buy 20 to 30 boxes of chocolate. But other than in the Western world the chocolate boom goes on until March 14th when the men are asked to give chocolate in return.

Needless to say, the approach of Valentine's Day is something that department stores and shops look forward to and promote with zeal because of its potential for increased sales. Large displays featuring chocolate usually with heart-shaped displays start to grace the floors of department stores from mid-January or so. Everything seems a little more red and pink these days then.


While all of this may seem quite one-sided, confectioners in Japan - never ones to miss an opportunity to sell more - took advantage of the Japanese feelings of obligation and created "White Day" in 1980 to help assuage the guilt feelings of those poor obligated males who received chocolate on Valentine's Day. On March 14th, exactly one month after Valentine's Day, men have the chance to return the favour.

They buy  some more expensive gifts of chocolate or other sweets (for some reason or other, these return gifts seem to be priced slightly higher than those the women purchase) to those women they like and oblige. Again, the stores provide plenty of reminders of the approach of this day so that even the most forgetful man cannot say that it slipped his mind.

The gifts of chocolate that men buy are in white boxes (after all, it is "White Day") and come with separate shopping bags to put them in. But on both of those days one needs to be careful to distinguish two types of gifts. They might be "Giri-choko (obligation chocolate)" or "Honmei-choko" (true-love chocolate).

"Giri-choko" is the chocolate given to men such as bosses, colleagues or male friends that women have no romantic interest in, just for friendship or gratitude. The concept of "giri" is very Japanese. It is a mutual obligation that the Japanese follow when dealing with other people. If someone does you a favor, then you feel obligated to do something for that person.

Unlike the West, sending a Valentine's cards is not common in Japan, and the phrase "Happy Valentines" is not widely used. Still Grocery stores, department stores, and convenience stores make a lot of money around Valentine`s day by selling a huge range of stuff in red or pink and decorated romantically. Also special types of chocolate are produced. After all more than half of the chocolate sold in a year is sold around Valentine's Day in Japan.