White Day

March 14 in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan is called White Day, or as I like to call it, Valentine's Day, Part II. This tradition, according to Wikipedia, was started in Japan in 1978. Apparently, on Valentine's Day, women give men chocolate and gifts, and on White Day, men give women gifts. This is supposed to be an answer to all the stuff women do for men on V Day.

I got a different story from all the kids I talked to today about it, so that's why I looked it up. According to the kids, chocolate is given on V Day, and candy is given on White Day. But that sucks. What woman prefers candy to chocolate? I also heard a couple kids say that year to year, which day is for candy and which is for chocolate switches. I ended up coming to an understanding with some kids that everyone pretty much does what they want on either day. But I didn't see candy one a month ago, nor did I see chocolate one today, so I guess it's still mostly traditional to keep to one confection on each day.

They've confused me over here about how they celebrate, though. Generally, Valentine's Day for us (if I recall correctly) is all about the women getting stuff and the man being chivalrous and gentlemanly. But here, the whole reason for White Day is evidently because women are the ones doing all the work the first holiday. And then they have a whole month to get dumped if the guy doesn't want to get her a gift, haha.

I'm not sure if they do cards here. I didn't see any. Maybe they just come with the gifts, not the candy.