Japanese Culture: St.Valentine’s Day In Japan, Valentine's Day (February 14th) is a special day for women to voice their affection for a special man. Generally, women take encourage to express their love to a special man by giving “Honmei-choco” which means the chocolate gift filled with their true love. This tradition began around sixty years ago, when a Japanese confectionery company ran a promotion encouraging women to give a heart-shaped chocolate to a man they like in order to increase the chocolate sales. The custom of giving chocolate became popular with shy Japanese women because they were given an opportunity to ask someone out on an excuse the Valentine’s Day. Today, women often give chocolate not only to the object of their affection, but also to their bosses, colleagues and friends as a sign of appreciation of their relationship. This type of chocolate is known as “Giri-choco.” While women give chocolate to men on Valentine's Day, the women expect to get gifts, such as candies, cookies and marshmallows, in return for the Valentine’s Day gifts a month later on White Day (March 14th). This day was also established by a Japanese confectionery company around forty years ago. Some women expect to get a gift of three times the value of the gift which they gave on Valentine’s Day! I gave chocolate to all of those who have helped me but I forgot to take a picture of those gifts. The following picture is gifts that I got from my colleagues and friends yesterday. I enjoyed my coffee break with lots of chocolate and I will have pimples on my face in a few days!