"White Day"

March 14th, "White Day" in a Japan. A holiday reportedly begun by confectionery companies wanting to cash in on more chocolate sales following Valentine's Day. On Valentine's Day, women give men chocolate, and on "White Day", men give women chocolate. Westerner's living here don't necessarily go along with this however, so on Valentine's Day, you'll see a long line of women buying chocolate with a lone western man in line. On "White Day", the stores are pushing chocolate, but I never see lines (of any kind of biped) the way there are on Valentine's Day.

The idea seems to be that a woman will give a man she's interested in a Valentine's Day chocolate, and if the man is interested, he will follow up by giving her a "White Day" chocolate. I'd always heard that the "white" in that came from white chocolate, but a quick look at a Wikipedia entry says that it may have started with a marshmallow manufacturer and then spread to chocolate from there. Seems sort of plausible, although certainly not widely known! I'm a little skeptical, come to think of it. Why would you want to give someone marshmallows?)

Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon
http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~LLLtrs/