Sweet romance: Japanese boys start buying into gift giving on Valentine’s Day
Women are traditionally expected to buy chocolates for male colleagues on Valentine’s Day but teenage boys are shunning the one-sided custom
It has been several years since Japanese women first signalled their contempt for the long tradition of showering male colleagues with chocolates on Valentine’s Day. Now the country’s young people are slaying another sacred cow associated with Friday’s orgy of commercialised romance: one-sided gift giving.
Traditionally, women are expected to buy gift-wrapped chocolates for the men in their working lives, usually senior colleagues and others to whom they feel indebted – a tradition called giri choco, literally “obligation chocolates”.
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