Today's useless fact - How do Japanese celebrate St. Valentine's
day?

In a rather unique fashion. Women give the men gifts of chocolate
as well as other gifts.

These gifts of chocolate are divided into two types: giri choco
(obligatory chocolate) and honmei choco (chocolate for the man
the woman is serious about). Giri choco is given by women to
their superiors at work as well as to other male co-workers. It
is not unusual for a woman to buy 20 to 30 boxes of this type of
chocolate for distribution around the office as well as to men
that she has regular contact with.

Needless to say, the approach of Valentine's Day is something
that department stores and shops look forward to and promote with
zeal because of its potential for increased sales. Large displays
featuring chocolate usually with heart-shaped displays start to
grace the floors of department stores from mid-January or so.

A woman will normally purchase boxes of giri choco in the several
hundred yen range and may purchase an expensive box of honmei
choco and another gift such as a necktie for her "special
someone".

While all of this may seem quite one-sided, confectioners in
Japan - never ones to miss an opportunity to sell more - took
advantage of the Japanese feelings of obligation and
created "White Day" in 1980 to help assuage the guilt feelings of
those poor obligated males who received chocolate on Valentine's
Day. On March 14th, exactly one month after Valentine's Day, men
who were lucky enough to receive gifts of chocolate have the
chance to return the favor by giving the women who gave them
gifts of chocolate a more expensive box of chocolate or sweets
(for some reason or other, these return gifts seem to be priced
slightly higher than those the women purchase). Again, the stores
provide plenty of reminders of the approach of this day so that
even the most forgetful man cannot say that it slipped his mind.
The gifts of chocolate that men buy are in white boxes (after
all, it is "White Day") and come with separate shopping bags to
put them in.

Thanks for sharing that. I'm always fascinated with how other cultures do things.

Wow, I just learned a new fact...that was interesting thank you

YW!

huh? what does YW mean?

I just love being a male

great!

YW= You're welcome!

(yes this thread is from last year)

Maybe we could start doing this in other countries as well?
We never get anything now..

We always get each other something, he gets me roses and I get him his favorit chocolate, then we have a romantic dinner out.

Ah, even more opps for commercialization, woohoo!

all the stuff u guys said was quite interesting.

but who invented Valentines Day?