Aside from kaiten sushi places where all the plates are 120 yen and the ocha is free … aside from visual treats like the fembots and drunken sarari men, aside from the comedic gems afforded to me by Engrish and my earnest students, Japan has managed to further prove itself as being pretty sweet by neutralizing quite easily the most annoying holiday of the year: Valentine’s day. While I was never the type to sit around and hate the loving couples (except for, perhaps, 10 seconds when I was 15), I do find the holiday a bit of a pain in the neck and, as I said, while I don’t despise happy couples on this day (as so many people in my boat do) I do tend to register a moment of embarrassment when yet another Valentine’s Day has come and gone and, once again, I have to shrug and say, “nope, no one special in my life.”
They celebrate Valentine’s Day in Japan, but instead of a “show your lover how much you care by buying them things” day it is a “women buy men – any men – chocolates” day. Thus, this is the first Valentine’s Day ever where I didn’t have to see other women cuddling stuffed bears, popping bon bons and flashing gems, when I didn’t have to think, “That’s nice. But where’s mine?”
So I bought my neighbors Bob and Sean boxes of Men’s Pocky, which I will give to them quite soon when we meet up at the yakitori place after another long day of teaching.
In other news, I had one class of students play the “Two Truths and a Lie” game today and one wrote down:
- I am from Osaka
- I once had a dog
- I like to touch animals
Ah, Japan. Thank you.