"When I saw you I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew."

Valentine's Day in Japan

On the 14th of February every year comes the omminous day of Valentine, a day feared by English men all over the country. Boys consider confessing their feelings to women they know actually hate them but they can't resist, and grown men regularly implode in Clinton's Cards shops all across the country because their brains can't handle the information overload they are recieving ("2000 different cards, and every one is shit?! How!? And why are they playing a pan-pipe covers of Shaniah Twain!? Sweet Jesus Christ!" *boom* ).

In Japan, a heavily partiarchal and reformed sexist society, this problem for men has been overcome by making only women give chocolate on Valentine's Day - our kind simply kick back and reap the rewards that benefit our social position. We may not even have to be liked by the women in question - within a company, for instance, women are often obliged to give chocolate to male coworkers regardless of their feelings towards them. These chocolates are called 'giri-choko', 'giri' being a word describing a sense of social duty or gratitude, or as I prefer to think of it, the sweet goodness recieved as a result of the fear of social rejection.

If you want to know any more, additional reading is available on about.com, a great source of information about Japan and Japanese culture and language.


My Valentine's Day

So how has my Valentine's Day been, you ask? How has my first Valentine's Day at a Japanese school been, you wonder? Well, wait no longer, ponder no more, for I shall tell you - my Valentine's Day has been awesome.
Grabbing my food and making my way to a first year classroom for lunch, I was halted at the door by three of my third year girls. Quickly dumping my tray to talk to them, they revealed three tiny little bags, each one with sweets hidden inside just for me. They grinned and looked at their shoes when they gave them to me, and I tried my hardest to play the modest role of the responsible teacher. Resisting the urge to tell them they were ridiculously cute and give them a big hug, I asked them about their exams and thanked them very much for the sweets, then and told them they should hurry off to lunch and away they went, grinning as stupidly as I was.
"What a pleasant surprise :)" I thought, "to be given chocolate by three cute young girls on Valentine's Day". Buy my adventure was far from over. Before the end of the day, I was given another bag of chocolates by a fourth girl, and then one final bag (two heart shaped choclates, hand made, delicious) two days later by another. "This doesn't mean I like you," she told me, "they are friendship chocolates". She hates boys and is going to an all girls high school. Apparently I'm OK though.


The End of the Week

I get on very well with all of the students above, but I was still surprised that any one of them thought to give me chocolate on Valentine's Day, let alone five of them. Another student that I get on particularly well with is a third year girl who came with her friend to lend her moral support while she handed over her gift. She came and found me later the following day to see how I was doing and to tell me that she was getting the results of her High School entrance exams two days later. I wished her luck and told her I hoped she did OK, then I walked her back to her class and told her I would find her on Friday.
Friday rolled by and I found her in her classroom, but she wasn't going to find out until the end of the day. Peering up from my desk about five o clock, thinking about going home, I saw her peering over the filing cabinets at me. Remembering, I rushed over and asked her about her results. The tears started to well up before she managed to get out the English to tell me she had failed, and by the time I realised I didn't have a tissue to give her, her eyes had filled with tears and she couldn't continue in English any further. She pressed on in Japanese, saying how she would still try her best, and I wondered how her eyes could look so sad and yet not a single tear could escape and roll down her cheek. I told her that it was OK, and that I had failed plenty of exams when I was young but had turned out alright (maybe), and she just looked back at me, hoping I would make it all better, but I couldn't.

On Monday, I am going to find her and offer to help her revise after school, because I don't know what else I can do.


In four weeks, the school year ends and all my third years leave for High School. I have become more attached to them in the 6 months I have been here than I had ever thought possible. Graduation will be a very special day, and one I will remember for a long time.

"Even with my eyes wide open, I can't see a thing."

I came to Japan to find out Japanese culture, and I am assuming that some of you are reading this to do the same. With this in mind, here is a brief explanation of one of the biggest corner stones of Japanese school life - janken.

Janken

In Japan, Janken is everywhere. You can see it everywhere you look, yet it initially seems impossible to understand. It looks familiar, like something you know but forgot a long time ago, but in the shouting and the blur of fists, it is difficult to pick out the common ties to what you can recollect from your youth, and it results only in confusion. I have seen teenagers doing it in the street; students standing up and doing it across the classroom; even grown business men in Japanese bars drunk off their faces, bearly able to raise their fists but still trying to commit janken. The first time I tried it I became confused and people laughed at me, but now I do it at least 5 times a day. Today I jankened 16 times over lunch with one boy. Let me tell you about janken.

What is janken?

Janken is paper, scissors, stone, but done to the extreme. It is to paper, scissors, stone what Gundam is to Robot Wars. Japanese school children can do this at an alarming speed, often so fast that you can't see it happen, and sometimes they barely even move their hands (it is like they have a psychic rhythm of janken between them - they can pull it with almost no counting, completely out of no where and both throw at the exact same moment). It can be done with up to ten or so people, but any more and tends to never end (this is the most confusing form of janken for me - they throw a couple of times every second, keeping track of what everyone else has thrown each time until a clear winner and loser are decided).
Most importantly, the rule of janken is absolute - you can never question janken, and janken can be thrown for anything. Once decided, no one protests or complains, it is simply the way it is (it would be like complaining that the Earth keeps rotating around the Sun, or that the seasons change every year).

Janken is incredible, and everyone should do it - once you have won something of value for the first time, you will never be able to turn back.

How to play Janken

You count yourself in for the throw, similar to rock paper scissors, but you use a Japanese phrase - "sai shou gu, jan ken poi". The beats are on 'sai', 'gu', 'jan' and 'poi' - you throw on 'poi'. Imagine that you are saying "paper, scissors, stone. one, two, three" and throwing on three, then replace the words with the Japanese.

The gestures in Japanese are the same as in English - a fist for stone, a flat hand for paper and two fingers for scissors. The rules are the same too - scissors beat paper, etc etc.

Draws are handled differently to normal paper, scissors, stone - in janken, you shout "aiko desho" ("isn't that the same!") and throw immediately on "sho". If your opponent is faster at realising there is a draw and calls this quickly enough, you can be left holding the same as before and easily be defeated.

There is also an additional round that can be played, but it is uncommon where I am and tends to be more for the fun of playing the game then for using janken to make a decison (see Wikipedia for more information).

Awesome Janken Fact (care of the Wiki)

Do you remember playing on the Alex Kid in Miracle World on the SEGA Master System II? When you reached one of the main game bosses you had to play paper, scissors, stone with them, but SEGA are a Japanese company and so you were actually playing janken, you just didn't know it!


This should be all the information you need to play janken. If you train hard, your janken can become strong and you will be respected. If you abuse your janken power, you will become arrogant and 12 year olds will beat you four rounds in a row and you will have to clear away their lunch for them as pennance. Heed these words, and good luck.