Today is White Day, an event created to serve as a “return gift day” when men in Japan will give something to the girlfriends, wives, daughters or female co-workers who gave them chocolate on Valentine’s Day. While it’s obviously an example of a fake day created so that shops can sell stuff, it’s also a good example of Japan’s highly evolved custom of gift giving, which requires that a gift be reciprocated with a return gift (o-kaeshi) equivalent to half the value of the first item. While Valentine’s Day is generally about chocolate, there are more options for White Day, including cookies, marshmallows, or the ever-popular flowers that actually contain panties. While Japanese-style Valentine’s Day and White Day are spreading across Asia, South Korea has a unique event for single men, held on April 14. It’s called Black Day, and single men who haven’t managed to find girlfriends by that date will gather together wearing black clothes, eat a black Korean noodle dish calld jajangmyeon, washed down with black coffee.
Happy White Day, everyone.
