Happy Valentine’s Day

Last year I made a promotional video for work about Valentine’s Day, which you can watch here:

While doing study for the video, my go-to site to hit was the fount of all knowledge- wikipedia.

My favorite bit was about Valentine’s day celebrations in different countries, particularly Japan.

Valentine’s day was first introduced in Japan in 1936 when an ad aimed at foreigners was run. In the 50’s the same company promoted giving heart-shaped chocolates, and other companies followed the example. Apparently a translation error by a chocolate company executive led to office ladies giving chocolates to their co-workers.

In the highly hierarchical Japanese culture, there is a LOT of stress given to gift giving, particularly in judging the correct amount.

Since many Japanese women feel obliged to give chocolates to all male coworkers, they’ve come up with an ingenious, and here’s the part that leads me to comment on it, funny, method of dealing with the situation. There are levels of chocolates to give. There are true feeling chocolates given to loved ones, friend chocolates given to actual friends. And then what are called obligatory chocolates that are given when it’s done out of obligation, such as having to give to a male co-worker, and then my favorite, the ultra-obligatory chocolates given to unpopular co-workers.

Hats off to Japanese girls who have figured out how to take a day celebrating love, that was turned into an obligation for them, to a chance to let that bastard at the office know what exactly what they think of him.

And with that, Happy Valentine’s Day!