White Day in Japan

14 March is a special day in Japan called White Day.  It is no coincidence that it is precisely one month after Valentine's Day.  As mentioned in my post about Valentine's Day (http://ourmaninjapan101.blogspot.com/2012/02/japanese-valentines-day.html), 14 February is marked by girls/women giving boys/men chocolates as a gesture of goodwill or gratitude.  On White Day, the ledger is squared as every boy/man who received a chocolate on Valentine's Day must return the favour by giving a chocolate or similar small gift to every woman/girl who have him a chocolate a month earlier. 

I am not entirely sure why White Day is called what it is.  Someone told me that it's because you are supposed to give something white, but apparently that's not mandatory.

So what did I do for White Day?  Well, in case you've forgotten, I received 13 chocolates on Valentine's Day. (Yes, 13. I don't like to boast but I can find it within myself just this once!)  Therefore, I had to give 13 gifts on White Day.  

If you take White Day particularly seriously, you might make the chocolates  you give, but I think very few people actually do that.  Unfortunately, I don't have an adequate kitchen to cook anything.  Still, I wanted to make an effort for White Day since 14 March 2012 may well be my only White Day. After some careful thinking, I decided to make some miniature packages, each containing some chocolates, an origami lily, an origami butterfly and some white decorating paper. It didn't involve cooking but it still involved making something myself.  

Making origami was perhaps a risky move.  I work in an office with several hundred Japanese people.  At least a few of them are bound to be very good at making origami, and will probably look at what I've done and think, "Nice try, dude, but I did better when I was in elementary school!"

I created 15 packages:  13 for the 13 people who gave me chocolates on Valentine's Day and two bonus packages.  Below are some pictures of me making them.  It took a while and making the butterflies was fiddly, but I think everything turned out OK.

Thank you for reading and take care.

Our Man in Japan.