Valentine’s Day brings forth romantic memories. But in the mid-1980s, this was not a famous festival in India. When I went on my first assignment to Japan as a young diplomat, I was unfamiliar with Valentine’s Day except what I had read in Archie comics.
In Japan, at that time, Valentine’s Day was beginning to be widely known. It was an adapted festival, much as Christmas and Halloween, from the popular American lifestyle in Japan. As more people learnt English, they tuned in to the radio station specially set up for the US bases in Japan. This created a familiarity with American ideas like Valentine’s Day.
My memories of Valentine’s Day are linked to my time in Japan. They celebrated it differently, adding to the tradition of gift-giving, an important Japanese cultural trait. For a country of large gift-givers, Valentine’s day was another marketing opportunity.
On Valentine’s Day in Japan, I found that girls presented chocolates to the men. And the recipient did not necessarily have a romantic expectation or entanglement with the giver. I found this most amusing since the girls gave us chocolates in those days, a welcome distraction.
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