Today is March 14th, and the Japanese celebrate White Day. It is the day when guys are supposed to “pay back” the chocolate they received a month ago on Valentine’s Day. Of course, just as I thought a month ago already, there are no especially nice chocolates around this time, but White Day gifts still appear to be quite difficult…
The thing today is that men are allowed to make differences in the gifts they buy according to recipient: If he just has to reciprocate for what is called giri choco, obligation chocolate, from coworkers for example, simple sweets in return are fine. A favourite one in this case are marshmallows for some reason, probably because they are (mostly) white?
Girlfriends get special treatment, the present may be more expensive, luxury handbags and expensive jewellery are not unheard of. Once you are married however, there’s no need to worry about gifts any longer: After all, your wife has access to your bank account and will simply go out and buy herself a present – and deduct the price from your monthly allowance. Yes, at least the first part of this sentence is still true in some households!
The above information I have gathered from a friend of mine, and she said that in her youth, a boy was supposed to reciprocate with a present that was about 10 times as expensive as the one he received! Of course, this was back during the bubbly economy, nowadays this number has gone down considerably – to about 3.
Still, I cannot understand why there’s not more exciting chocolate around on White Day. The displays have shrunken a great deal and it’s more of the standard fare this time – maybe guys aren’t as picky as girls? My friend assures me though that the 3 times as expensive holds for giri choco as well. I don’t think I’ll ever understand the Japanese ways…