White Day

White Day

It shouldn’t surprise me that there was yet another Korean holiday to celebrate that involves candy. After Pepero Day (chocolate stick day)nothing should surprise me

It would be too much to call this a bonafide holiday, although I’m sure the women of Korea would disagree with me. But they would probably do so in Korean, which is just water off a duck’s back to me lately (you just assume everyone is yelling ‘nice hat’ after a while). The only other country that celebrates this holiday is Japan, and in this place its basically the female equivalent of Valentine’s Day.

On Valentine ’s Day girls give chocolate to boys. One month later on White Day boys give those same girls candies and chocolates (originally marshmallows, hence the name). Moreso than even Valentine ’s Day this day was created and promoted by commercial businesses.

The general rule is that a White Day gift to a girl is supposed to be three times the value of the gift that a man received from a girl on Valentine ’s Day. Which is a pretty solid candy investment for a girl if you think about it. It’s actually a better system than back home for the guys, since we usually have so much trouble on valentines day. This way we already know what to buy, how much to spend and who to give it to- rather than the crapshoot that was 24 He-Man Valentine cards hastily addressed that I remember not getting me any action as a youngster.

Now much like Valentine’s Day there are also smaller candies that are given out to every girl just for the sake of the day. So I picked up a few bags of Hershey kisses to pass out to my female students and fellow teachers, figuring that it might be a good occasion to buy some goodwill. Nick had forgotten all about White Day so I let him have one of my bags of chocolates, since it wouldn’t be fair to have kids in the school feel left out. So with my chocolate supply at half five minutes into the day I didn’t give any to the other teachers, figuring they would take it better than six year olds (who knows a grown woman to keep a grudge?). Now obviously its not a huge deal but both Nick and Patrick gave them treats (wonder where Nick got the chocolate?) so I might be seen as a bit out of touch. Only time will tell.

Now its hard for me to give out chocolate to kids, since I believe that most of them have had plenty enough candy as it is. But I don’t want my personal beliefs on nutrition to one day turn me into some weirdo that gives out toothbrushes on Halloween so I could justify this day. Some of the boys in my classes were a little miffed that they didn’t get any candy- amazing how quickly they forgot about just one month ago when they got candy and the girls didn’t. The school handed out lollipops to everyone so there was some eveness, but the three boys in my youngest class started crying despite my gentle consolations of : ‘tough luck fatty”. So I gave them chocolates too, they seemed more than willing to accept the gender confusion in exchange for some sugar.

I also served to alienate myself a little further from the staff near the end of the day when a bunch of them were sitting around the various cakes, cookies and chocolates brought in by parents and invited me to partake. They all already know me as a ‘picky eater’(which I guess is a step sideways from the ‘health nut’ moniker I had back home) which is a bit of a big deal since food is such a social event here in Korea. Many restaurants only serve one dish with plenty of sides that everyone at the table shares in. The communal sharing of food is essential to the culture and I’m the weirdo foreigner that doesn’t participate. But there doesn’t seem to be any animosity stemming from it, just curiosity at my quirkiness.

Now if White Day was somehow centralized around the exchange of pizza (Dominos take note!) I’m positive that I would have seen nothing wrong with packing away a slice or so ('so' meaning the number 14 here).