Apocryphanalia

Well, we're in the height of the holiday season here in Japan: the last post-Setsubun parties have died down, and yesterday was Foundation Day, a traditional day for staying home from work and, I don't know, inspecting the foundation of your house for silverfish or seepage or something. Whatever. But the Early February Holiday Season is far from over. Some people think that Japan does not celebrate Valentine's Day. Some people are fools.

A dramatization of Japanese romance.

The specifics of Japan's observance of Valentine's Day, at least in the Kansai region, are actually very interesting. In the mid-sixteenth century, before entering a period of national seclusion, several small Christian missions sprung up on Japan's shores; many of these missions were established by brothers of now-obscure monastic orders (you know, like the kind that keep cropping up in terrible Tom Hanks movies). In 1629, thousands of Christians were executed by the Tokugawa shogunate after the shogun expelled all foreigners from Japanese soil -- but, importantly, not from artifical islands such as Dejima in Nagasaki. Though Christianity was nearly eradicated at this point, some underground traditions were carried through the subsequent centuries on such artifical islands, including the esoteric practices of the French Order of St. Valentine. Currently, many Valentine's celebratory practices held over from Renaissance France are still observed in Kansai regardless of religion: on February 14th, Osakans nearly without exception meet in community "High Courts of Love," where volunteers hold mock "court" for crafting "love contracts" and hearing offences of love such as betrayal and frigidity, while local poets submit traditional rondeau and ballades to woo the objects of their affection in a highly stylized, romantic, and spiritual environment.

...Nah, just f***ing with ya. It's pretty much the same old orgy of commercialism and chocolate that they have everywhere else on Earth. The only difference is that over here, the women give chocolate (giri-choko or "obligation chocolate") to the men (and we wear shoes on our hands, cats and dogs living together, etc. etc.). Of course, men have to return the favor in March on White Day, a holiday my Japanese textbook defines as "yet another gift-giving holiday." In the meantime, here's to candy given unabashedly out of social obligation!

Had you going there, though, huh?