Valentine's Day in Japan

I was torn between posting about my 5000th picture or Valentine's Day, but Naomi's querying comment has encouraged me to follow up.

I actually forgot it was Valentine's until I got to work at Zamami and pulled out my chair which had a little red bag on it. I soon learned it was from 'all' of my female co-workers. But every morning around 8:20am the nutrition girl (school lunch menu planner), who is 25ish and single, comes into the teachers room to use the common computer next to my desk. I always talk to her (she speaks enough English that we get by fine), encouraging creative pleasantries beyond "I'm fine, thank you, and you?" I also put in my two cents on the previous day's meal, and ask "Is today pizza toast?" (We've had pizza toast once since August.)

Well, I think some of the other teachers take note of our conversations and they think I am hitting on her. I am fairly sure I'm not interested, but I figured what better day to take it to the next level? So I thanked her for the chocolate present. She stuttered that it was a gift from all of the female teachers. I responded by telling her they said it was from her. I gave her 5-6 seconds to stammer before using the Japanese word for "joke, joke!" But enough of the surrounding teachers realized what I'd done that it became quite amusing.

On February 13th I had baked a loaf of bread to split as a gift (non-VD related) to two of the women who work in the Board of Education. So I delivered that and got more chocolate in return. One of the women happened to be in a neighboring restaurant where The Most Beautiful Woman on Zamami works and she gave me chocolate, too! (Unfortunately she's married and has a son I teach.) Then, three girls from the 9th grade came by my house to drop more chocolate off.

The 'cool' thing about VD in Japan is that it's actually celebrated twice. On February 14, women give men chocolate and on March 14, White Day, men return the favor. My friend Wren was nice enough to send me this link, which informs me that I have to repay the effort by a factor of three!