Hey oh y’all,
Happy Valentine's Day y’all!
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| Bear choking...barely breathing...help me! |
It’s an extra special day since this year I finally have a
Valentine! Yay me!
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| Ummm...hi? |
Thank you Sumi-chan! Yay! I gots chocolates!
--don’t get so excited…it’s only giri-choco…sigh…
Giri-choco? What’s that?
--In Japan girls give chocolates to guys, but not just their
special someones. Often girls/women give chocolates to all of the men in their
life – bosses, co-workers, classmates, etc. Most of these guys get giri-choco
or obligatory chocolate. It’s like saying, “I acknowledge you are a guy and you
exist. Here you go.” And so, David, you exist…here you go.
So it’s not honmei?
--you mean the super fancy chocolate that you can buy (or
make) that you give to a special someone?…keep dreaming…
Sigh…awww….
--while David eats his chocolate I will explain how
Valentines works here in Japan. So unlike America, in which partners both
exchange gifts (or at least the panicky guy rushes to buy flowers on his way
home from work) and go out for dinner, in Japan, women traditionally give
chocolates to guys—guys plural. Then on White Day (March 14), the guys are
supposed to give back gifts or chocolates to whoever gave them chocolates on
Valentines. The chocolates have classifications, depending on the relationship
– honmei is for the special someone, tomo choco is for friends (can be guys or
girls), and giri is for everyone else that you see regularly but you really
aren’t all that close to. So David naturally gets giri.
But Sumi…I’m still cool right?
--did you read my prior post on what makes a cool guy right?
Takarazuka? I don't think so.
Yes but…
--but nothing. On that note, yesterday we got to meet a
ex-Takarazuka member! She was a musume-yaku (female performer). She was so
cute! And she liked pandas! She told us about the challenges and joys of being
a Takarazuka student and performer. She had to train for long hours with no
sick days and do a lot of cleaning (she even had to sweep the floors with sticky
tape). But she got to meet the imperial family and she had lots of fans who
gave her lots of gifts and stuff!
Umm Sumi…I thought this was my blog post? I was going to
talk about Takarazuka?
--uh-huh…you can talk about how your language class is
going?
Sigh…
--uh-huh…like how you went to the clothing store today,
learned some clothing related kanji, then tonight when you came home and your
host family had you read a clothing advertisement, you couldn’t since you
forgot?
Gee, thanks…
---that’s what I’m here for!
Ok…before this gets any more embarrassing, I think I shall
end the post.
Come on Sumi. Can't we agree on one thing? Can we at least wish all of our friends and family a happy Valentine's Day?
-Now you are thinking! I actually like that idea!
-------We hope you all have/had a great Valentine’s Day! Much love to everyone!------
-DC
(and Sumi...who wrote most of this post... --wait what?)
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