Today is White Day
White Day (ホワイトデー, howaito dē?, a Japanese pseudo-anglicism; Korean: 화이트데이 Hwaiteudei; Chinese: 白色情人節) is a holiday created in Japan (1980) in response to the holiday exactly one month ago, which is Valentines Day. It is celebrated on March 14. Japan, South Korea and Taiwan observe this holiday.
In Japan, Valentine’s Day is observed by members of the female gender who present chocolate gifts (either store-bought or handmade), usually to a member of the male gender, as an expression of love. On White Day, men who received a honmei-choco chocolate on Valentine’s Day are expected to return the favor by giving gifts, usually more expensive. Sometimes the term sanbai kaeshi (三倍返し, sanbai kaeshi? literally, “thrice the return”) is used to describe the generally recited rule that the return gift should be two- to three-times the cost of the Valentine’s gift.
There are many theories about the origins of White Day. According to one, the holiday began in 1965 when a marshmallow maker started marketing to men on the grounds that they should pay back the women who gave them chocolate and other gifts with marshmallows. [wiki]
I notice this tradition in some anime/j-dorama videos I watch. I wonder why most of the males try hard not to get a gift from a girl. Then I realized that, it is because, if they receive (specially if they are popular) too many gifts from the opposite gender, they will end up repaying all of them on White Day.
