The Beat March 2003

I‘ll never forget that fateful March 14th, over a decade ago. The woman I had been seeing back then seemed strangely quiet that day -- almost sulky. She listlessly stirred her overpriced Nescafe to the strains of Air Supply‘s Lost in Love in the dimly lit booth of the Nampodong coffee shop. Finally, she broke. “Do you know what day it is today,” she demanded. I believe my answer was “Thursday”.

“It‘s WHITE DAY,” she countered venomously, waiting for my response. It was all clicks and buzzes to me at the time, but I‘m sure I wasn‘t the first (or last) Westerner to be caught unaware. Now, over ten years later, the truth about White Day can be told.

This holiday did not evolve from a linen sale, but was rather the brainchild of an anonymous Japanese marketing genius in 1980. Valentine‘s Day had caught on in Japan, and it seemed that two such holidays could theoretically double sales on candy. From that time on, February 14th would be the day women gave men, whether romantically linked or otherwise, an obligatory box o‘ chocolates. By the same token, March 14th was the day for the guys to repay their confectionary debt of the previous month by giving slightly more expensive white boxes of candy.

Given the world‘s love of inexplicable Japanese imports, while the West got Speed Racer, Korea assimilated White Day into her holiday repertoire sometime around the late 1980s. White Day seems a perfect fit for Korean society -- a great way to stimulate the economy while keeping up with the gift giving impulse that runs strong here.

The key to understanding Korean Valentine‘s/White Day for me was coming to the gripping realization that neither are really about romance. These holidays serve to make everyone feel just a little bit special for one day, and for the emotionally immature among us (count me in!), they afford an opportunity to base one‘s self-esteem on the amount of candy received. Now, before you start feeling above all this, those of you in the “education biz” need to ask yourselves if you don‘t do the same thing every single Teacher‘s Day.

For those of you hoping to spend a holiday packed with romance, or some reasonable facsimile thereof in Korea, you can thank the Land of the Rising Sun once again for another bizarre twist on Western tradition. This time, it‘s Christmas Eve. No babes in mangers, wandering carolers or eggnog here -- Ibu, as it‘s known in Japan, is for couples to exchange gifts over an intimate dinner. And then, for dessert, it‘s generally par for the course to end the night in a love motel being a ho, ho, ho. I love asking Korean university students if this is the norm here as well. The reaction is so predictable: a salvo of nervous titters, some gratuitous throat-clearing, but always that one student in the back, with the sly grin on his or her face that answers your question.