Like the countless other bastardized generic Western traditions, at one point in time the Japanese adopted the holiday known as Valentine’s Day and made it their own. No longer is it a day for a man to spend ridiculous amounts of hard-earned money on flowers and chocolate for his special lady in hopes of getting some good lovin’ in return in order to express his heartfelt feelings — instead, the Japanese took it upon themselves to combine the made-up day of buying stupid crap in the name of love with the eternal playground favorite “opposite day” and created a day in which women give gifts to men.

Great idea, isn’t it? Women in western countries are spoiled silly — birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas, Valentine’s Day — if you don’t spring for something nice on each occasion, there’s no guarantee your sweetheart won’t walk out the door and never return. Not once is the shoe ever on the other foot, so to speak, and we men receive unreciprocated gifts from the women in our lives. However, here in Japan, the 14th of February is a day especially for women to indulge men. From store-bought chocolate to home-made goodies, women throughout the country take the time to do something sweet for the ones dear to them.

And then there’s giri choco — combining the bitterness of obligation (giri) with the sweetness of fermented, roasted, and ground cacao seeds combined with a sweetening agent, giri choco is what Japanese women give to the men in their lives (friends, coworkers, etc.) out of nothing other than pure, unadulterated social obligation. Sure, it sounds silly and completely unnecessary, but then again, so are most social customs. Whether people like it or dislike it, all that matters is that they buy chocolate and make the chocolate barons even richer.

Of course, in Japan, obligation isn’t truly obligation unless it’s mutual and never-ending. Thus, the confectioners in Japan created a completely new holiday in order to keep up the indebtedness cycle, and White Day was born. Exactly one month after Valentine’s Day, men who were lucky enough to receive gifts on Valentine’s day (giri or otherwise) now have to give gifts in return, at often two or three times the value. In other words, White Day is a terrible, terrible holiday, and I’m lucky that no one likes me enough to give me giri choco in the first place.

Now excuse me while I go cry myself to sleep.

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Yesterday while browsing through the prepared food section of my local department store, I saw this and just had to get it. Behold, Valentine’s Day themed sushi: