Friday the 13th and Valentines Day
Today being Friday the 13th, I've been getting asked a lot of questions concerning Americans and our fear of this day. I don't think anyone in this day and age still takes the superstition seriously, but sometimes when talking to Japanese people I find it easier to just play into their expectations, so I said some people in America worry about Friday the 13th. I was curious to see if this superstition was world wide, so I've been asking if in Japan people worry about Friday the 13th. The response is always that since Japan is not a Christian nation, they don't believe in Friday the 13th.
So apparently Friday the 13th is a Western tradition, but I'm not entirely sure it has its origins in Christianity. Does it? I overheard one of the teachers in the staff room explain to everyone else that Christians fear Friday the 13th because Jesus was put to death on a Friday, and betrayed by Judas, who was the 13th disciple. But I'm fairly certain there were only 12 disciples. Does anyone know the origin of Friday the 13th? If so, send me an e-mail. (I guess I could look it up on the Internet myself but, you know, too damn lazy).
Ironically there seems to be a bit of confusion over Valentine's Day, which is obviously a Christian holiday (from Saint Valentine). Many of my students, and even Japanese colleagues, believe that Valentine's Day is in Japan only. I've been surprising a lot of people by telling them Valentine's Day is celebrated in the U.S. as well.
But it is different in Japan. All over the rest of the world, men are busy buying presents for their girlfriends on Valentine's day. In Japan, it is the female's job to give gifts of Chocolate to the men. The men aren't expected to give anything at all to their girlfriends on Valentine's.
To balance this out, a separate holiday was eventually created in Japan known as "White Day", which occurs exactly a month later. White Day was actually created by the marshmallow and Chocolate companies, which saw an opportunity to double their valentine sales by encouraging men to reciprocate the gift a month later.
But dig, White Day came later. Originally only Valentine's Day existed, and originally only the women gave chocolate.
Which reinforces what I've been telling some of you ever since I got here: Is Japan a man's paradise or what? Men don't clean, men don't cook, a certain amount of marital infidelity for the husband is almost expected and...Somehow while throughout the rest of the world men are buying things for their girlfriends on Valentine's day, Japanese men managed to convince their girlfriends that the women was supposed to give on this day. How do they do it?
Disclaimer
Okay, obviously I'm stereo-typing for comic effect. Many Japanese men do clean, cook and are faithful to their wives. And now might be a good time to confess that my own record as a Western male on cooking and cleaning is pretty terrible. On cleaning especially terrible.
Also, I did eventually search the Web myself for origins of Friday the 13th. The websites I looked at all agreed that the origins had been lost in antiquity, and only offered various hypothesis (such as this website). And if you're wondering why it takes me so long to reply to the e-mails you send me, it's because I'm wasting my time on things like this.