magnetic-rose.net: Japanese Pop Culture for Filipino Fans

(Belated) Happy White Day everyone! Just for fun, today we’ll be talking about White Day, or “Reverse Valentine’s Day”. I also tossed in some more wacky, totally unofficial Japanese holidays for your daily dose of mame-shiba <3 A couple of them will surely please the pedobears and fujoushi among you -- so, on with the show!

White Day: 14th March

As discussed in a previous post on Valentine’s Day in Japan, White Day is the day that gents reciprocate the ladies for the chocolate they received on 14th February. Some young boys also use this opportunity to ask one of the girls who gave them honmei chocolate to go steady with them.

However, the similarity in gift-giving ends with giri choco or obligation chocolate. For one thing, there is no such thing as tomo choco or friendship choco for guys, because that would be just creepy and/or ghei if they gave each other chocolate for no real reason. Also, husbands and boyfriends are expected to give more than just honmei chocolate — jewelry and designer goods are expected (even demanded) by their significant others.

One curious thing unique to White Day is the acceptance of very personal items as gifts by female employees from their male bosses and coworkers. On any other occasion including their birthdays, ladies feel awkward accepting items like handkerchiefs, cosmetics and toiletries, and underthings from their male colleagues. However on White Day, it is perfectly acceptable — especially if all the other ladies in the office receive the same thing.

Pocky no Hi: 11th November

11th November has been designated as Pocky no Hi or Pocky Day, because written numerically the date looks like four Pocky sticks in a row. It was originally from Korea where it was called Peppero Day — Peppero being a copycat snack food brand that looks exactly like Pocky. The Japanese decided to retaliate by copying the holiday, and the rest — as they say, is history.

Gyudon no Hi: 10th September

Gyudon no Hi was invented by Yoshinoya (no surprises there :D) to celebrate their signature beef bowl. The basis for this unofficial holiday is — just like Pocky no Hi, its numerical date: the compound kanji for nine and ten sound like “gyudon” when read in a particular way. On this day Yoshinoya usually has a special promo: sometimes buy one, take one on beef bowls, or sometimes fifty percent off the prices of their entire menu.

Moe no Hi: 10th October

This one is for you loli fiends out there: the tenth day of October has been designated as Moe no Hi :D This is based on the kanji for moe (萌え) and its similarity with the kanji of 10th October (十日十月). I have to admit I have very few details on how this holiday is celebrated by the proponents of moe, but I know enough to say that they are probably very, very NSFW :D

Yaoi no Hi: 1st August

Yaoi no Hi is another unofficial holiday based on a play on words. The kanji for eight is sometimes pronounced as “ya”, zero can be pronounced as “oh” from the English convention, and one is “ichi” or just “i” for short — and you get 801 or “ya-oh-i”. 801 as shorthand for yaoi has actually become pretty prevalent, with a cross-dress comic cafe and a manga publishing house taking it on as a name.

As for celebrating this holiday, just like Moe no Hi they are mostly held behind closed doors, although it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out what it involves :D