In the US March 14th is playfully known as pi day, due to the fact that the US style of putting month before day has us writing the date as 3/14. It's not much of a leap to 3.14.

In Japan, however, March 14th has a different meaning.

It's White Day today!

White Day is when men buy chocolate for every woman who gave them chocolate on Valentine's Day a month before. I guess that might require some explanation.

You see, in Japan, on Valentine's Day, women buy chocolate or make chocolate treats for men. They might do it for their sweetheart, called honmei-choco, or they might do it for the other men in the office as just kind of a politeness, called giri-choco. Yes, Valentine's Day in Japan is a good day for men!

Oh, but we pay for it. On White Day, men who received any chocolate on Valentine's Day are expected to return the gift. Making it worse, there is an old custom called sanbai gaeshi that says the return gift should be three times the value of the gift they received. Ouch! Woe are men on White Day!

Many men, then, are double hammered. I, for example, don't really care for sweet things, so I usually give any chocolate I receive to my wife when I get home. But then I still am expected to give a return gift on White Day! I think I need to design a button that says "my wife ate my Valentine's Day chocolate" that makes me exempt from the requirements of the day.

All joking aside, it's an interesting tradition. The day has proven fairly popular and has spread to China, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Korea. Will it eventually spread to the US? It might have to fight with math geeks who love pi day!

I think we all know the real winners on these two holidays: the confectionery companies and department stores.

[Title banner created in Dall-e. My only prompt: "Make me a title banner for a post on White Day". Pink tint to all the white and the weird fact that the text isn't centered between the blossoms or over the river aside, I thought it came out nice. The button was created by Dall-e too. Slight misspelling aside, it's almost perfect.]

❦

David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.