Korean "Holiday": White Day (화이트 데이)

Happy White Day! It's a day for white people, y'all.

No, just kidding-- it's a quasi-holiday that was popularized in Japan and taken to new heights of marketing frenzy in Korea.

According to the English Wikipedia article, White Day was first observed in Japan in 1978. The idea came from a candy company, of course. Then Wikipedia flips out and says that a company that made marshmallows marketed March 14 as Marshmallow Day in 1977. So which is it, Wiki?? 1978 or 1977? You can't be confusing me over here!

To further confuse myself, I looked up the Korean Wikipedia article (you know, to see if the racist Koreans posted that White Day was swiped from the Japanese). Mistake. Now I have lots of conflicting dates! Korean Wiki (or 위키 for short) tells me that March 14 was first touted as Marshmallow Day in Japan in ... 1965.

(Wiki and 위키, get your facts straight. I rely on you both for sound articles! I'm not even going to bring Wiqi (French Wiki) into this, because she failed me and didn't agree with Wiki or 위키. Argh!)

Whether it was in 1965, 1977, or 1978, White Day's been around for a while. It's not at all celebrated in the U.S. (I don't know about other non-Asian countries) but is a rather big deal in Korea and Japan. We do love any excuse for gift-buying and candy-eating.

The rule of White Day has to do with the rule of Valentine's Day, different from the American rule of chaotic trading of candy and Valentines. In Korea and Japan, girls give boys chocolate for Valentine's Day and boys give girls candy for White Day.

This makes no sense to me, because I feel that as a whole, girls enjoy chocolate more than boys do. Shouldn't it be the other way around?? The part I do like is that there is an unspoken rule about boys spending three times as much on White Day gifts as girls do on Valentine's Day gifts. Too bad I didn't see anyone but my parents and colleagues today!

I've glimpsed (very tacky) candy bouquets, (even tackier) pre-packaged gift baskets, and very gag-inducing couple-y things here in L.A. around Valentine's Day and even on White Day, but just in Koreatown. I cannot even imagine what it must be like in Korea, when candy companies are bombarding the general public with pink, love-themed items.

Regardless of my trepidation, hope you had a lovely White Day!





















I went to work today and wrote some exhausting Excel formulas, looked at a bunch of shots, and tried to catch up so that Monday won't be so painfully Monday-ish. Wheeee!

It's also Pi Day today, since Pi = 3.14.

(Sort of. Really, Pi = 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510.)

Happy Pi Day! I wish I had had some pie today. Yum, piiiiiiie.

There is a strange sort of comfort in numbers for me. Numbers are finite, solid, and black-and-white. Numbers very rarely fall into a gray area, especially in my line of work. Movies get made with a lot of number shuffling, a lot of money shifting hands, and there is a kind of instant gratification in that- get the money, do the work. Don't get the money, don't do the work. The beauty of numbers.

Now I'm off in hunt of candy and pie. Such an unhealthy day, March 14!

(January 14 was Diary/Candle Day, and February 14 was (of course) Valentine's Day.)