Valentines Day in Japan
Okay, obviously this one is a bit late, but you know how it goes.

Last week Monday was of course Valentines Day. I’ve written about this in year’s past, but Valentines Day is interesting in Japan. It’s almost the opposite of the US in the sense that the women are responsible for giving gifts to the men. (How did the Japanese men pull that one off? Geniuses they are.)

The traditional gift is chocolate. Some of my fellow teachers were predicting that since they thought I was quite popular with the students, I would be getting a lot of chocolate on Valentines.

I didn’t get anything. Not one bit of chocolate. Not to worry though; I’m taking it pretty well. I try not to base my self worth on how popular I am with Junior High School students.

I did help a young student in love get chocolate from a girl he was keen on, and in that respect I feel like it was a victory for us both. It was after school when all the students were going home. I was outside with the other teachers seeing the students off. A group of boys were standing around trying to encourage their friend. “Go on, talk to her. Talk to her.”

“It’s too late,” he replied. “Look, she’s leaving already.”

“What’s her name?” I asked.

“Tanaka,” someone else answered.

I shouted out at the girls leaving, “Tanaka! Stop!” When Tanaka stopped, I pushed the boy forward. “Go over, talk to her.”

Perhaps it was a bit unprofessional on my part. It was the kind of thing I would do to embarrass a friend back in University, but perhaps not the kind of thing a teacher should do to a student. I just did it without thinking. On the other hand, all is well that ends well, and the boy returned with a broad smile on his face and a package of chocolate from Tanaka. Besides, the young lad in question, despite his momentary shyness, is actually pretty outgoing and popular with the girls, which was one of the reasons I did it. I would never have done that to a socially awkward student.

Along the same lines I recently helped a Canadian friend of mine hook up with the girl of his fancy. Actually I really didn’t do that much. He liked a waitress at a certain restaurant, so all I did was accompany him to that restaurant and then slip out the door while the bill was being paid so he could ask her out. Truth be told I had an ulterior motivation for leaving early and letting him pay the bill. But just the same I thought I had played my part well. We were walking back to the car afterwards, congratulating each other on how smoothly the whole operation had gone, and then he said, “By the way, what did you do with those CDs I gave you?”

And I was like, “Oh fuck, I left them in the restaurant.” And so we had to go back into the restaurant, and it somewhat ruined the smooth note we had exited on originally. But the important thing is he got he asked her out.

If anyone else has any love problems, let me know. I’m on a roll lately.