Valentine's Day in Japan

On February first, the entire country explodes into a unified color scheme of brown, white, and red as a wave of Valentine's Day marketing washes over the whole society. The inherent weakness for romance captures the women and young girls while men and boys relish being on the receiving end of attention and affection.

February is a great month for retailers in Japan. Every public facility is draped in ribbons and bows; lacy hearts and images of loving devotion and lustful seduction adorn walls and windows everywhere. Red hearts and big cardboard kissing lips hang from ceilings; large banners with pictures of happy men, housewives in aprons designing beautiful chocolates in their kitchens, lovers kissing, even pictures of pets and cartoon characters participating in romantic gestures hang on walls in banks, post offices, subway stations and billboards.

Chocolate sports cars, golf bags, balls and clubs; chocolate hearts and lips and busty women, even penises; chocolate Buddhas, chocolate mahjong games, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate everything! Anything related to love, sex, fun, giving, and hope can be found in beautiful packaging and sprinkled with Cupid's lusty-dust.

All the chocolate-making supplies and how-to books are displayed along with wrapping and packaging supplies. Special displays are set up on street corners and in shopping malls. It is everywhere; no one can miss it. More precisely, no woman can miss it.

I went to the sento later than usual on February first, mostly because I didn't want to discuss the sudden dramatic, chocolate-flavored, love-shaped changes in society. Like the responsibilities of the holiday of lust and love, however, I could not miss the subject in female chatter.

When I entered the dressing room, it was empty and quiet, but life lingered in the air as evidence of bathers greeted me in the baskets of clothing on the shelves, the musty, steamy smell of sweating bodies mingling with floral fragrances of powders and lotions. Blow dryers left on the sinks and puddle-patches scattered about on the floor told me I wasn't alone. I took an empty pink plastic basket from a shelf at eye-level and as I started to undress, I noticed the rumpled pile of Aki's clothes at my feet. I smiled at her sloppy habits. I scooped them up in my arms and dropped them into the basket and returned it to the shelf. Following her example then, with a smug smile of my face, I stripped to a bare nothing and stepping out of my clothes, I left them in a crumpled heap on the tatami floor. Taking my bucket of supplies, I entered the foggy bathing room ready to greet my friends.

"Alala!" Aki bellowed.

Ei-san squealed.

"Finally," Aki growled. "We were about to leave - just give up on you and leave!"

"But I told her you would never miss a bath," Ei-san stated loyally.

"Never mind you," Aki grumbled. "Sit," she commanded, slapping the top of the stool next to her. "We'll soak again while you soak," she said to me as I sat down beside her and began to drench my body with the massaging spray from the showerhead.

"You wash her back while I clean my stuff," Aki instructed.

I turned toward Aki, exposing my back to Ei-san and I handed her my long scratchy cloth over my shoulder.

"You must be busy today," Jitsu said as she waddled close, hinting for an explanation for my tardiness.

"Un," I uttered beneath the pressure of Ei-san's hands.

"Suzu-san is gone already," Jitsu told me. "She had to go home to fix dinner."

"No one needed to wait for me," I muttered.

"No, no, it's our pleasure," Jitsu retorted apologetically. Then she backed away and slipped into the bathing pool.

"Of course we'd wait," Aki said, wringing out her washcloth. "We have plans to make and we need to be sure you can come."

"But do I want to come?"

Ei-san giggled.

Aki ignored my comment, but let it hang in the empty space between us long enough for me to know she didn't like it.

"Thank you," I said to Ei-san before she was really finished scrubbing my back. She rinsed out my cloth as I turned my back to the mirror and arched upward to let the hot water soothe the top of my head and down my back. My long hair fell between my shoulder blades like a soft, silky blanket. I poured a dab of shampoo into my palm, rubbed both hands together, then began to massage my scalp. With my eyes closed and the stimulating sensations of warm suds and finger pressure on scalp and hot water beating on lumbar, I could slip, if only for one silent moment, into solitary bliss.

The thud of Aki's cleaned bottles dropping into her bucket next to me was the assured reminder that my private ritual was indeed being performed in public domain.

Aki took the showerhead from its hook and, standing over me, ran it close to my head with one hand, raking through the flow of bubbles in my sandy brown lock with the thick fingers of her other hand.

"Every year we all get together to make the Valentine's chocolates," she began.

So we need to know what day works best for you, " Ei-san interrupted.

Aki huffed. "Yeah."

"Oh, I don't know," I said lethargically. "I'm just .. I don't ..."

"How about Saturday." Aki said this more as a definitive statement than a question.

"It's so much easier to do with friend," Ei-san prodded. "You have to come."

"Well then, it's decided," Aki concluded, returning the showerhead to its hook. She lumbered her way to the soaking pool.

"Oh, that's a relief," Ei-san sighed, hands on her knees to push herself off her stool. "Come soak, Angel-san," she called.

I scooted around on my stool to face the mirror and faucets. Pulling an imaginary curtain around my back by simply turning my focus inward, I washed between my legs, between my toes, and under my breasts. I rinsed away the soap with buckets of hot water and brushing strokes with the palm of my hand, then walked to the tub and slowly lowered my slick-as-a-seal skin into the warm buoyancy of the green sea kelp pool.

"Make your list and bring it to my house on Saturday," Aki said, denying me the silent emptiness of brain that the pool promised. "We'll start at ten," she said.

I opened my eyes and penetrated my gaze into each set of eyes in the circle. They all watched closely.

"My list?"

"Yes, your list. Who do you need to give chocolates to this year?" Aki's voice was matter-of-fact and instructional.

"No one," I said, knowing she would make the list for me, though I hoped it would get me out of the project.

"Not 'no-one'," Aki reprimanded. "You've got your boss, your male colleagues, and really, you should include the men in our lives as well since they are a part of your social group."

"But my real social group is you," I argued.

"Well now, Angel-san," Jitsu began.

"Stop being difficult," Aki interrupted, taking over the reprimand. "I just can't understand why you insist on making it so difficult to learn how to be a proper woman. Didn't your mother teach you anything?"

Jitsu clicked her tongue inside her mouth and quickly stood tall, exposing her limp breasts. "We know your culture is different," she said, trying to soften Aki's harsh judgment.

"It's our job to teach her right," Aki barked.

Jitsu lowered herself back into the water, but closely watched my face as Aki took over the conversation again.

"Now listen, Angel-san. It's important for you to just do your duty and don't question it."

"Duty..." I mused.

"Well, of course," Ei-san joined. "That's why we call it 'duty chocolate!"

"Giri-choco" I repeated, staring now at the top of the water.

"Yes. It is giri choco," Aki said. "And that is precisely why we make it together."

"So then will all these men give us white flowers and white chocolate on the return day, March 14^th?" I asked.

All the women erupted into laughter, even Jitsu.

I chuckled along with them, then quickly dropped my smile. "Really," I said. "Wasn't White Day designated as the time for men to return the favors of Valentine's Day?"

"You're so funny, Angel-san," Ei-san said, splashing water playfully in my direction.

"you're so guillible," Aki said, exasperated. "That's just a marketing ploy. Don't you know men don't fall for that? Besides, giri doesn't work that way."

"Men don't fall for it, but women do?" I poised.

"Angel-san!" Aki's tone indicated that I was about to push it too far.

Jitsu floated closer to me, cocking her head to look directly into my face. "We don't fall for it either," she said, soft voice full of patience. "We just know its value." She crinkled her nose and blinked deliberately as if to unite my mind with hers and accept understanding, or at least accept it as fact, with or without understanding: catering to men has value to all women, even me. This is how giri works.

It was impossible for me to argue with Jitsu's gentle heart, so when I smiled back at her, it was genuine. I dipped down into the water and arched my face upward as I rose back up, wiping the water from my eyes and smoothing my hair down over the curve of my forehead.

"Saturday will be fine," I said.

"Yosh! Time for me to go home," Aki announced. She stood abruptly and lifted her body out of the pool and onto the ledge with surprising grace.