March 14 vs. March 17

St. Patrick's Day where you are? I was just listening to KCBS (from San Francisco) and they were going on about stocking up on corned beef, cabbage, and beer for the festivities which apparently started this weekend and will continue at least until the 17th. Here in Japan, St. Patrick's Day is almost unrecognized, although my wife refers to it as Green Day and knows you're supposed to wear something green. She certainly didn't know about junior high school boys pounding on peers who forget to wear the required color, but then, there are still lots of things about American culture that surprise her.

March 14th, however, is a significant day here in Japan. It's called White Day and can be a fairly expensive day for men and the start of a week when women can binge on chocolate without spending a penny. (No jokes from my British friends, please.)

Wikipedia and other web sources date the tradition of Valentine's Day in Japan back to 1936, when Morozoff, a Kobe-based chocolatier, started advertising. Supposedly there was a typo, and only women were encouraged to buy chocolate for the men in their lives. (I think, more likely, the ad was composed by a man and he didn't want to spend the money.) In any case, since then, Japanese women have spent more and more money and gotten nothing but thanks in return, until 1978, when the chocolate sellers of Japan instituted White Day. That's a chance for men to give chocolate to the women who gave them chocolate a month before. The lingerie makers have tried to get in on the act, but that seems to have been largely unsuccessful.

Sorry, no picture. I guess my wife took her chocolates to the office.