This week was Valentine’s Day. As you may or may not know, Valentine’s Day is done a little bit differently here in Japan. Back home, boys and girls give each other cards, flowers, chocolate, etc., but here, Valentine’s is the day that girls give chocolate to the guy(s) they’re interested in. If a guy wishes to reciprocate, he can do so one month later on White Day. I received chocolate from some of my students as well as my fellow English teachers, so I was pretty happy. Girls give two types of chocolate on Valentine’s day, and I got both kinds. While the set my teachers gave me was purchased at a department store, my students gave me chocolate they made themselves at home, and it was surprisingly good! Female office workers also tend to give their male bosses chocolate on Valentine’s Day – whether they like them or not – out of a feeling of obligation. Hence this is know is 義理チョコ(ぎりちょこ), or obligation chocolate.
The weather has been bizarre of late. In my three years living in Osaka, I’ve never seen it snow. But over the past week, it has snowed many times. It’s the same almost every day. It’s very sunny in the morning, and then shortly before noon, a violent flurry of snowflakes falls down for an hour or so, then the sun comes back out.
It’s the middle of winter now, and the temperatures span from about -2°C to 5°C every day. I’ve always preferred summer to winter because I hate being cold, but Japanese winter is particularly unbearable for me. The problem is that buildings are designed to be cool in summer, but not warm in winter; there’s no insulation. This is fine in summer because you can open up all your doors and windows and you usually get enough of a cross breeze to cool things down. But in winter, the heat tends to bleed out of the room pretty quickly. Also, when you factor in the lack of central heating, it makes things even worse. In my English office, for example, we have a gas stove that sits in the middle of the room to provide warmth (with a kettle full of water on top to add some humidity to the air). For the most part, when I’m in the office or in a classroom, it’s warm. But when I step out into the hallway, it’s like I’m walking outside. I can instantly see my breath! Part of the problem lies in the lack of insulation, but another part of it is that teachers and students alike seem to see no reason for closing doors to the outside. What little heat we have simply flies out of the building. Surely they don’t live this way at home. But at school, they think nothing of closing doors behind them. I’ve made it my personal mission to walk around after the bell has rung when I don’t have class and close all the open doors (and the occasional window!). I can’t wait for spring!
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