How does Japan mark Valentine's Day?
バレンタインデー
- Local date
- February 14, 2027
In Japan, 14 February is when women give chocolate to men. According to the Statistics Bureau, the practice is said to have begun around 1958 and settled into custom through the late 1960s and 1970s. The trace it leaves is measurable: the household survey shows February chocolate spending at 2.8 times the monthly average for the year, at 1,376 yen in the February concerned. The split between honmei and giri chocolate turns gift-giving into a classification of relationships, though obligatory workplace chocolate has been visibly receding.
ホワイトデー
- Local date
- March 14, 2027
White Day on 14 March is Japan's return-gift day: whoever received in February gives back a month later. That rule of obligatory reciprocity is unique among the seven places here — it converts a one-way gift into a paired obligation, and even fixes the interval. What to give back, and whether it should cost more than the original, once had all sorts of rules attached; in recent years that too is treated as an individual choice.
What is this topic?
There is more than one day for showing affection, and they do not fall together: Japan has women giving chocolate on 14 February and a return gift on 14 March, Taiwan keeps both 14 February and the lunar Qixi, Brazil places it on 12 June, India stretches it into a week, and the United States keeps it to a single day. This page compares who gives, who returns, what is given, and how large a measurable trace the day leaves in each place.
Sources and dates
Dates follow local time zones, calendars, and official notices. Check the source when a date is estimated or locally variable.