Happy Valentine's in Japan!

Here are the happy facts:

1.     In Japan on Valentine’s Day, women typically give chocolate to men and not vice versa.

2.     In addition, women may also give small gifts of chocolate to any male to whom they somehow feel connected, such as their boss, co-workers, classmates, friends and so on. This is called “obligatory chocolate.” In Japanese, giri-choco.

And now you see why I love Japan.

Japanese merchants have created a reciprocal day – called White Day – on March 14^th, when men are supposed to offer return gifts to those from whom they have received. The gimmick has spread to other nearby nations as well.

A fine idea that flies like lead. White Day earns sweet shops a few loose coins. Valentine’s Day packs their vaults.

A behind-the-scene's comment on my chocolate sculptor (see column):

At the time, I guess she was maybe 13. Years later, when my wife and I married, we by chance settled into a home near this girl’s residence and she became a frequent house and dinner guest. As time rolled on, our boys knew her as their babysitter. Years after that, we had front seats at her wedding. That bust produced more than a chocolate high; it forged a family friend.

Bean paste comes in two colors, brown and white, with brown more prevalent. I do not dislike it now as much as I did then.

The column's chocolate info is from the year of publication, so it's outdated. If you are not the metric type, 1.1 kilograms is just under 2.5 pounds.

All Japanese localities sell regional foodstuff souvenirs, with bean paste a popular ingredient.

The Japan Times title is below. Mine is simply, “Happy Valentine’s in Japan!”

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Valentine's in Japan, oh How Sweet It Is

Feb 2, 2000

Here's a juicy fact to sweeten your life: The average Japanese consumes about 1.1 kg of chocolate per year.

Meanwhile, your typical American gobbles down five times that amount -- which still pales compared with the 10 kg snarfed away by your average Swiss or German.

The sugary hook on the modest Japanese figure is this: Sixty percent of the total consumption centers around one specific day.

And what day is that?

No, not the Emperor's birthday. Nor even my birthday. But rather that single day of the year when every person in Japan succumbs to chocomania -- Valentine's Day.

Every person, that is, but one -- my wife.

Who blames her chocolate reluctance on her mother. As a small child, my wife once asked where people go when they die and was told they go to heaven.

So my wife asked about heaven. What was it like?

Her mother's fun-but-fatal response?

"Nothing but chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate!"

My wife thus came to link chocolate with death. A morbid association that lingers still now, even despite having a husband who would rather eat chocolate than breathe.

For such a husband, life in Japan has been rich. Especially during the choco-season of February.

What starry-eyed bard could even dream of such a paradise!? Where girls give chocolate to guys, and not vice-versa.

And not just to their own "special" guy, but to ANY guy they happen to know. With each and every storefront bursting with more cocoa goodies than the Milky Way holds Mars bars.

"None of it counts," my wife reminds me. "It's giri-choco. The girls who give it aren't in love. They’re just being kind."

Who cares? Certainly not me, standing there with chocolate stuffed in every available opening, including mitts, pits, pockets, socks and mouth. All that matters is that it's mine.

Talk about heaven. Especially back in the days when I was new to Japan and teaching at an all-girls’ school -- a time when I was also yet technically available and still had more hair than fingers. A school with an enrollment of more than a thousand.

Each year by the end of Valentine's Day, I had accumulated so much giri-chocolate that I had to eat for two hours straight before my haul became light enough to carry home.

One creative young lady even presented me with a milk chocolate bust of my head. I resembled a tilted Napoleon dunked in mud, but looks aren't everything. Lopsided or not, I still had that chocolaty zing. Right down to my eyeballs, which I saved for last.

Some scientists say that chocoholics are akin to drug addicts. That the phenylethlamine in cocoa stimulates the brain in a manner not unlike the rush one gets when falling in love.

Maybe this explains why Japanese girls are so eager to mainline their men with chocolate. Perhaps they hope to hook them on a feeling that they can later replace with romance. A sort of love potion in a wrapper.

The bad news is that too much phenylethlamine can give people the jitters. It can change them into hyperactive dynamos, who will work like wide-eyed robots for hours and hours.

Wouldn't it be something if the secret to fabled Japanese diligence was not a high supply of fighting spirit but instead a February overdose of chocolate?

The preferred sweet in Japan isn’t chocolate at all but rather azuki bean paste. Similar in color, but rather… beany.

The brown ball in the middle is bean paste.

My opinion: Blech. I would rather lick wallpaper.

But the azuki bean is a wily critter and difficult to avoid. It will pop up inside pastry, ice cream, marshmallows and anywhere else where it’s least expected.

The Japanese love bean paste far more than chocolate. For each mouthful of chocolate consumed in this country, there are two equivalent swallows of azuki beans. Bean paste, in all of its many forms, also pumps lifeblood into the nation’s regional souvenir trade.

My wife has no eschatological views on azuki beans. Neither is she so fond of them. When it comes to desserts, she is one of those fruit people.

Meaning there are some sweet-toothed Japanese out there who are making up for her lack of consumption and actively devouring azuki. When it comes to covering for my wife's missed chocolate…

That's a duty I shoulder alone. In truth, I probably make up for her and several other people as well.

I almost feel I could kick that 1.1 kg per capita figure up a notch all by myself. What’s life without a challenge?

My motto? Anything a Swiss can eat, I can eat more of.

Ah, Valentine's Day! Ain't it sweet!?

Happy Valentine's Day!

© Thomas Noah Wood

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