The Choco-Laws of Valentine's Day
I'm sitting in my usual chair in Conference Room 201. Four Japanese people are sitting silently in their places, looking at me with nervous expectation. Time once again for English class here at the manufacturing company."Hello everyone!" We English teachers are so glib. "How is everyone doing?"
Silence.
"So can someone tell me what day it is?"
I believe, maybe foolishly, that someday, someone will answer without being called on by name.
This is a great first question for class, by the way. It's an easy way for the students to switch into English mode, and it lets me know what day it is.
Scanning the four faces in front of me to decide who to pick on, I see that Michiko looks particularly nervous. Doesn't she know what day it is? The three guys in the class are staring at her too now, all of them grinning like I just called on her.
"February fourteee-eeen," one of them says, not to me but to Michiko.
And it hits me. Valentine's Day!
There's no sign of any chocolate in the vicinity of Michiko but I'm salivating like a Pavlovian dog. Because I know she knows the rules.
There's no sign of any chocolate in the vicinity of Michiko but I'm salivating like a Pavlovian dog. Because I know she knows the rules.
Not Because I'm a Pervert
On the surface it looks like your typical Valentine’s Day in any number of countries around the world.
But in Japan, where people show affection about as often as they take a day off from work, the enthusiasm for Valentine’s Day seems utterly illogical. I love my adopted neighbors, but really, I've seen houseflies show more passion. (It's true, I have. It was weird.)
There is an explanation for the incongruousness. And it's right where you'd expect: in a thorough set of guidelines that tells the entire population how to properly express their mandatory feelings.
By Japanese rule, women are expected to give Valentine's Day chocolate to every male they normally associate with, like bosses, co-workers, and (ahem) English teachers. Men are expected to do nothing but rake in the truffles.
In other words, being someone's Valentine in Japan is not a matter of being the object of their affection so much as being an object in their proximity.
A Little Bit of History
The confectionary company Mozoroff is said to have introduced the concept of Valentine’s Day to Japan in 1936, with an advertising campaign targeting "those grabby foreigners." Long mired in a climate of muted self-expression, these expats were only too happy to propagate the chocolate-covered scheme, reuniting with their libidos for better or for worse.
The wider Japanese population, on the other hand, had no idea how to handle the strange feeling of having feelings. They would only begin to enjoy the amorous effluvium years later, once the rules for doing so had been developed and disseminated and committed to memory.
Interestingly, an error in the translation of an early Mozoroff advertisement may have led to the unique Japanese custom of the women giving chocolates to the men. Thanks to that other unique Japanese concept called gaman the women decided not to cause a fuss. (It reportedly took the men less gaman to keep their mouths shut.)
Love Rules
On Valentine’s Day in Japan the mark of true love is known as hon-mei, the highest form of chocolate in the land. Traditionally a woman would make this chocolate herself, wrapping it in paper with the precision of a neurosurgeon and presenting it to her (presumably) one true love, who in turn is expected by state ordnance to recognize all the effort and labor that went into this box of bon-bons and conclude that the woman deserves to have children.
Some women would attempt to pass off expensive and elaborately-wrapped store-bought chocolate as hon-mei, but such side-door attempts at love were only met with suspicion if not outright scorn (politely expressed). Recently, however, to the relief of countless women and the delight of many a confectioner, the taboo of such false affection has received official governmental mitigation, proffered case-by-case in correlation to how expensive and elaborately-wrapped the chocolate is divided by the man's TOEIC score.
(You All Have to) Be My Valentine
In the Japanese workplace every woman is expected to give giri-choco ("obligation chocolate") to all male co-workers in a specified desk-radius. Failure to do so results in punishment, the swiftness and severity of which is largely unknown as Japanese women are warned (by powers no one has ever actually seen) not to test the system.
Women are further advised in a memo circulated on February 4th (or the previous Friday if the 4th falls on a weekend) to bring a stash of emergency chocolates for the men who show up to work early on the 14th and reposition their desks to maximize their intake. In 1987 a woman in Yokohama tried to complain to her boss about the whole situation before she realized he had moved his desk to the Tokyo head office for the day.
Women are further advised in a memo circulated on February 4th (or the previous Friday if the 4th falls on a weekend) to bring a stash of emergency chocolates for the men who show up to work early on the 14th and reposition their desks to maximize their intake. In 1987 a woman in Yokohama tried to complain to her boss about the whole situation before she realized he had moved his desk to the Tokyo head office for the day.
The unseen powers have further kept people’s feelings in order by establishing an acceptable price range for this level of intimacy. This index of regulated generosity is invaluable to any woman, for if she goes too high-end with her truffled obligations she risks the embarrassment of appearing to be whoring out multiple hon-mei.
Conversely, if a woman tries to get by on the Valentine’s Day cheap she’ll be accused and scorned for giving everyone cho-giri-choco, designated in the ‘No Co-Worker Left Behind Act’ of 1991 as the ‘very obligatory chocolate’ reserved specifically for the accounting department and any other geeks normally outside the social desk-radius who, until 1991, got nothing.
Despite the seemingly overriding adherence to the rules of love and affection, there are those in Japan who are simply hell-bent on bucking the system. In recent years an officially non-estimated number of men have been suspected of giving their favorite females hon-mei chocolates and other tokens of affection on ‘Barentine’z Deh’. Memos flew like mochinage but no one could locate any documents outining the penalties for such transgressions.
Acts of Chocolate Revolution
Despite the seemingly overriding adherence to the rules of love and affection, there are those in Japan who are simply hell-bent on bucking the system. In recent years an officially non-estimated number of men have been suspected of giving their favorite females hon-mei chocolates and other tokens of affection on ‘Barentine’z Deh’. Memos flew like mochinage but no one could locate any documents outining the penalties for such transgressions.
To counter the risk of complete Valentine's Day anarchy the Japanese Diet handed down the state-sponsored concept of gyaku-choco, or reverse chocolate. With this the courage of all men was unleashed and they openly stormed the supermarkets and confection shops with their newfound governmental permission to express themselves.
At about the same time teenage girls had also begun testing the limits of Japan’s tolerance for unchecked displays of warmth with the unruly practice of swapping sweets and treats with their female schoolmates. Recognizing the unstoppable nature of this wave of unrest the Diet quickly instituted the term tomo-choco, or ‘friend chocolate’, and order returned to Japan’s emotional landscape once more.
Most recently, consequent to the Kyoto Agreement, the Japanese government encouraged the practice of giving boxes of eco-choco which, compared to hon-mei choco, came with an average of 2.4 kilograms less packaging, ribbons and stickers with misspelled English terms of endearment. This of course sent the packaging, ribbon and sticker industries into a tizzy of ‘Change?’ while upending the ability of the general populace to determine the proper level of suspicion for store-bought hon-mei. Thus eco-choco was slow to catch on.
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For years Japanese men reveled in their lack of mandated responsibility to return the affection and
expense that women, through negative reinforcement, were highly encouraged to extend. This until the National Confectionery Industry Association lobbied to make men pay back with standardized gratitude all the pure, heartfelt generosity shown to them by all the women who had no other choice.
Thus was born the state-sanctioned and socially-compulsory ‘White Day’. Now every year on March 14th (a bonus for me as this is also my wife’s birthday) men dutifully fulfill their heart-shaped responsibilities by reciprocating on every hon-mei, giri-choco and cho-giri-choco they received. (There are urban legends of underground Valentine Agents doing random checks on this, compelling men to keep accurate logs of the value of each choco they receive and give.)
At about the same time teenage girls had also begun testing the limits of Japan’s tolerance for unchecked displays of warmth with the unruly practice of swapping sweets and treats with their female schoolmates. Recognizing the unstoppable nature of this wave of unrest the Diet quickly instituted the term tomo-choco, or ‘friend chocolate’, and order returned to Japan’s emotional landscape once more.
Most recently, consequent to the Kyoto Agreement, the Japanese government encouraged the practice of giving boxes of eco-choco which, compared to hon-mei choco, came with an average of 2.4 kilograms less packaging, ribbons and stickers with misspelled English terms of endearment. This of course sent the packaging, ribbon and sticker industries into a tizzy of ‘Change?’ while upending the ability of the general populace to determine the proper level of suspicion for store-bought hon-mei. Thus eco-choco was slow to catch on.
The Equal Chocolate Rights Amendment
For years Japanese men reveled in their lack of mandated responsibility to return the affection and
expense that women, through negative reinforcement, were highly encouraged to extend. This until the National Confectionery Industry Association lobbied to make men pay back with standardized gratitude all the pure, heartfelt generosity shown to them by all the women who had no other choice.
Thus was born the state-sanctioned and socially-compulsory ‘White Day’. Now every year on March 14th (a bonus for me as this is also my wife’s birthday) men dutifully fulfill their heart-shaped responsibilities by reciprocating on every hon-mei, giri-choco and cho-giri-choco they received. (There are urban legends of underground Valentine Agents doing random checks on this, compelling men to keep accurate logs of the value of each choco they receive and give.)
In a strange twist it was decided that eco-choco would not be repaid, on grounds it would double the packaging, ribbon and sticker waste. With this women quickly abandoned the idea, putting the final nail in the eco-choco coffin.
To make sure the men were not just responding robotically to the profound emotional foundation of Valentine’s Day the Industry created the term ‘sanbai-gaeshi’, or ‘three times the return’. With this the men are obliged to spend three times what the women spent, in a show of raw and honest gratitude confirmed by an elaborate system of bar code technology and comparison guidelines.
In the spirit of patriotic animosity South Koreans have not only adopted Valentine’s Day and White Day and proceeded to spend, by official accounts, ‘a lot more’ than their Japanese counterparts, they’ve gone further and set aside April 14th as ‘Black Day’. This is when everyone who got the shaft (or didn’t, as it were) on Valentine’s Day and White Day goes down to their local Chinese restaurant for a dinner of black noodles.
The Korean Confectionery Group is looking for ways to introduce the concept of cho-giri-choco to the common workforce but the Black Noodle Underground has so far been able to stymie their efforts.
Despite the extensive choco-policies there does exist in Japan the natural human ability to let the emotions flow rampant. After all the rules and regulations regarding the various levels of choco have been adhered to and one’s affections have been properly displayed and officially received, Japanese people, like all sugared-up lovers, do take to the bedroom.
According to reports submitted by the Japan Love Hotel Conglomerate, this fiery release of passion takes place every year on society’s self-administered day of consummation: Christmas Eve.
End Note: As a Westerner of genuine emotion I do not subscribe to the one-way protocol of Valentine’s Day in Japan. That is why, as I sit on the couch waiting for my wife to finish changing my screaming kid’s stinking diaper, I am going to save the last two chocolate-covered strawberries she made for me so she can try them. Then we are going to cuddle up and watch the movie I rented: Fight Club.
To make sure the men were not just responding robotically to the profound emotional foundation of Valentine’s Day the Industry created the term ‘sanbai-gaeshi’, or ‘three times the return’. With this the men are obliged to spend three times what the women spent, in a show of raw and honest gratitude confirmed by an elaborate system of bar code technology and comparison guidelines.
In the spirit of patriotic animosity South Koreans have not only adopted Valentine’s Day and White Day and proceeded to spend, by official accounts, ‘a lot more’ than their Japanese counterparts, they’ve gone further and set aside April 14th as ‘Black Day’. This is when everyone who got the shaft (or didn’t, as it were) on Valentine’s Day and White Day goes down to their local Chinese restaurant for a dinner of black noodles.
The Korean Confectionery Group is looking for ways to introduce the concept of cho-giri-choco to the common workforce but the Black Noodle Underground has so far been able to stymie their efforts.
Consummating The Choco
Despite the extensive choco-policies there does exist in Japan the natural human ability to let the emotions flow rampant. After all the rules and regulations regarding the various levels of choco have been adhered to and one’s affections have been properly displayed and officially received, Japanese people, like all sugared-up lovers, do take to the bedroom.
According to reports submitted by the Japan Love Hotel Conglomerate, this fiery release of passion takes place every year on society’s self-administered day of consummation: Christmas Eve.
End Note: As a Westerner of genuine emotion I do not subscribe to the one-way protocol of Valentine’s Day in Japan. That is why, as I sit on the couch waiting for my wife to finish changing my screaming kid’s stinking diaper, I am going to save the last two chocolate-covered strawberries she made for me so she can try them. Then we are going to cuddle up and watch the movie I rented: Fight Club.
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