Japan isn't a Christian nation. Most people have never set foot in a church or ever seen a Bible. Most people don't know who Jesus is, except that 25 December is his birthday.

Incidentally, people know 25 December is Jesus's, birthday, solely because it's been made into an unofficial holiday. In the sweet, endearingly naive manner of those who've adopted a custom solely for the excuse to party, people get together with friends on Christmas to have a birthday party for Jesus. It's kind of cute really. Bakeries make *bank* around Christmas selling birthday cakes, which are the exact same strawberry shortcake that's sold year round, except twice the normal price. I can't believe nobody's tried to capitalize on Boxing Day.


Back to the story...

So, not a Christian nation. Therefore, the logical conclusion is that Japan doesn't have Catholic saints (actually it does but that's another story and ruins this one, so we'll ignore it for the moment.) In addition, the commercial tradition of decimating entire tracts of forest in the name of giving heart-shaped doilies to classmates isn't known here. THEREFORE a holiday like Valentine's should be a STRANGE AND FOREIGN CONCEPT.

However, Japanese celebrate Valentine's Day with gusto, because some enterprising chocolate company back in the 30s decided to import the idea to encourage people to give each other chocolate. I imagine the conversation at the headquarters of this chocolate company went something like this:

"Let's do that American thing and promote the giving of chocolate on February 14. Then we'd sell a lot of chocolate!"

"Better yet, let's take it even further and promote giving chocolate to not only one's lover, but also to one's family, friends, and coworkers. Then we'd sell even MORE chocolate!"

"No wait IgotitIgotitIgotit... We SPLIT the chocolate into categories - the kind you're obligated to give someone, like your boss, and the kind you want to give to someone, like your boyfriend. Then we can make the obligatory chocolate using cheaper bulk materials and sell it cheaper, and raise the price on high-quality chocolate for lovers. That way people will buy lots and lots of obligatory chocolate because it's cheap and easy to hand out, and buy the really expensive chocolate to show their lovers how much they love them, and then we'd sell PILES of chocolate!"

"Holdonholdonholdon, THIS is da shizzle. We split the holiday into two. We'll say that Valentine's Day is for women to give men chocolate, and then we'll invent a totally NEW holiday one month later for the men to give women chocolate. And then we'll promote that men have to spend MORE on their chocolate than the women did for them! We'll be selling MORE THAN TWICE AS MUCH CHOCOLATE THEN!!!"

"Oooooooo......"

And that is exactly where we stand today. Every year between New Year's and Valentine's, Japan is subjected to an advertising blitzkrieg promoting chocolate in every form, size, price, packaging, and gimmick. Godiva inondates the market from the fanciest boutique to the 7-11 on the corner (no joke.) There are materials for making one's own chocolate bonbons, chocolate recipe books, cute packaging and ribbons for giving that perfect gift, and every where is the heavenly aroma of chocolate and the jangle of money as it gets sucked into the capitalist machine.

During this time, women of all ages rampage the chocolate boutiques in the rapid search of the best chocolate. They spend hours planning, listing, strategizing, deciding who they need to give chocolate to, who they want to give chocolate to, and how much money to spend on each. It's actually very important to decide because it's actually an investment. In exactly one month, they expect to get back chocolate and gifts from every since man on the list, in higher value. If the man fails in his duty to give a gift of higher value than the one he was given, he is demoted on next year's list. It's a holiday where the roles are scripted out to the last yen.

For example, on one 20-something woman's list this year:

Giving:
Boss: chocolate 2000 yen
Male Coworkers: chocolate 300 yen each.
Brothers and dad: chocolate 1000 yen each.
Boyfriend: Chocolate 5000 yen.

Receiving back (expected):
Boss: chocolate 5000 - 10000 yen.
Coworkers: chocolate 1000 yen from each.
Brothers and dad: chocolate 1500 - 2000 yen each.
Boyfriend: Designer handbag or diamond earrings 150, 000 yen.

You think I'm joking. I'm not.


And they all lived happily ever after, cried the capitalist machine.