My experience with Valentine’s Day: homemade sweets with Meaning

February rolls around with one of Japan’s most busiest holidays next to Christmas and New Years. If you’ve ever been to any department store, specialty sweets shop or even local supermarket, there are dozens of advertisements for any brand new products being shown especially for Valentine’s Day. The thing about Valentine’s Day in Japan is really different from America. One thing Is that chocolate and sweets are the main gifts that are given and the giver is always the girls. Around this time of year, many women ranging from high school (JK short for 女子高生joshi kousei) to office ladies (OL) and even your neighborhoood friendly aunts and grannies flock to specialty chocolate stores like Mary Quaint, Sils Maria and Godiva, if not supermarkets and cake stands, just about anywhere that sells anything specialy made for Valentine’s Day.

I think a lot of people may know a little more about valentine gift giving culture through anime and manga. Many popular high school related series usually involves the well known “handmade chocolate + love confession” side story where the main female lead diligently makes some kind of confectionary for the guy she likes or is dating, if not following a sappy but pull-on-your-heartstrings kind of love confession. I was one of those girls when I entered my first year of university. ^^; Actually, let me side track to a story from long ago:

Back in high school I really looked up to one of my senpais, thought he was cool and eventually started liking him a lot (your typical high school crush I guess). No matter what we were doing, it was just always fun being around him. And like every cliche high school girl in any manga or anime, I wanted to show how great I was at things like cooking or...just being a really cute down to earth girl. Kind of like prove my worth ‘ya know? But I always ended up embarrassing myself in front of him. I think one time I tried to make a homemade bento for him and lets just say.....it was NOTHING like those pretty little glistening treasure box full of pretty jewels kind of lunch...I still cringe at what I had done and I hope the memory doesn’t resurface ever again haha. ANYWAYS, at one point I wanted to give him chocolate for Valentine’s Day and do that cliche love confession but I decided not to because I had this idea that valentines day was specifically only for couples that already existed and I felt like it would be weird for me to make the first move. Not only that but I was extremely shy about doing it, like maybe I’m way to serious about it. PLUS the idea of rejection and humiliation scared the bricks out of me. So I decided not to do it. Things happened between me and my senpai, and slowly we just stopped talking to each other until we were just out of each other’s lives. He graduated and went to do bigger and better things, And throughout the rest of my high school senior year, I started seeing less and less of him until it was one of those out of sight out of mind kind of things. When I graduated, I ended up regretting not confessing.

Which brings me to my first year of university where I started dating someone new. Another senpai who I admired and at first it started as a rumor that we were dating because we were always hanging out together. But I eventually started liking him and so my roommates at the time (who were all from Japan) convinced me to make chocolate for him. They were all dating someone at the time so we decided to all make “Honmei Chocolate” together.

For those that dont know, Honmei Chocolate (本命チョコ lit. translates to true feelings chocolate) is the serious kind of chocolate you would give to your significant other or the person you like (in my case since I was planning on confessing). Some girls will buy a special box of chocoolate for the person they like at a department store or specialty store (which is what happens a lot in japan) or, if they really had a lot of time, will go through cookbooks or online sites with easy recipes to make their own sweets (which is what we did). I dont remember what we made but I think it was the typical Nama Chocolate (生チョコ) which is like a rich bite size solidified version of a chocolate ganache covered in cocoa powder. Of course there are other types of Valentine’s Day chocolate you can give say if you don’t really have a specific person to give your all to haha.

Take for example, Giri Chocolate (義理チョコ lit. translates to obligatory chocolate）which is the chocolate you give to Your co-workers, boss, teachers, anyone that you feel obliged to. Some times people will buy a simple bag of candy (KitKats and country maam are popular as bulk bags) and hand it out as an option for giri chocolate as its cheap and easy to distribute. But recently over the years in Japan, there have been popping up more types such as Tomo Chocolate (友チョコ) which you give to your friends, Jiko chocolate (自己チョコ）the kind of chocolate you buy yourself as a treat (because TREAT YO SELF), and even gyaku chocolate (逆チョコ）where the guys will give the girls chocolate on February 14th instead of the other way around. Though this type is actually similar to the holiday called White day on March 14th where guys who receive chocolate from girls will return the favor by giving back double the amount). Japan has even adapted western terms such as “Galentine’s Day”, a cute spin off the words gal for girls and Valentine’s Day, where girl friends will spend the day together giving chocolate, making chocolate or just hanging out instead of with a guy.

In the end, I was the one who got confessed to and we ended up togehter. Each year I’d always make homemade chocolate if not some type of sweets; both giri and honmei. One of the thing I remembered making was a Japanese soufflé cheesecake. I remember making it with my host sisters who were still in high school and wanted to learn how to make Nama chocolate for their friends and teachers. Then I taught them how to make single serving soufflé cheesecakes say for the person they admired. Making sweets together was the best memory I had with my host family and after I left the program, I still continued to Team up with friends to make sweets. Just that togetherness felt good And giving away a piece of your handmade creation to someone, seeing their smile when they receive something, always put a smile in my heart. I wish I had realized that sooner.

The following years in Japan, I continued making homemade sweets. I had broken up with my freshman year boyfriend but still continued to make giri chocolate for my co-workers, students (when I was teaching English at the time), and classmates. Most of them were all easy recipes And I always fell back to making either nama chocolate, cookies, or cheesecake. I especially liked making sweets for my students when I was teaching English. I used this recipe from Just One Cookbook and it was really easy to make but tweeked it a little by using a sticker as a stencil and dusted a few in cocoa powder instead of green tea powder. It made an outline of the design and my students really liked it. (Apologies for the awful photo though as these were taken several years back)

Last year I actually taught a friend of mine to make a really easy Nama chocolate for her boyfriend that she started dating not too long ago. She spent the night at my house and we accidentally made 200 pieces of Nama chocolate along with a recipe for Hot chocolate cookies as giri sweets. Here’s a similar recipe from Tasty that you can use: even though these are holiday cookies, February is still technically Winter in Japan, I thought they would be still okay for Valentine’s Day. The night before Valentine’s Day though, we ran out of butter so we decided to churn our own by over whipping heavy cream until it solidifies. YES! YOU CAN MAKE YOU OWN BUTTER AND ITS REALLY EASY (I learned from a mistake while taking cooking classes)

We were up till 3am making chocolate, mostly talking but at least having fun. My kitchen and living room were such a mess though. We had gone the extra mile to cut out shapes in the Nama chocolate, then remelt the left over and cut it out again. Not only was that time consuming but also very tiring as well. However, even though my kitchen was a complete mess, the important thing was that doing together was fun. I’d gladly have my kitchen turned into a mess again. I mean, this is why I wanted too get a big apartment.

This year for 2020, I sadly dont think I’lll be making chocolate for valentines day. Well, at least not Honmei Chocolate. For one thing, I’ll actually be heading to Korea during the valentine’s week by myself. I’ll be mostly shooting photos to maybe think of some new work to put out this year or find some new inspiration. Maybe being in a new country will expose me to new things especially for a new photo project that I’ve been dying to start for a while. Please look forward to any new work in the near future! I want to try my best with this opportunity.

The other reason is simply because I just don’t have a reason to give honmei chocolate right now. I always made giri chocolate for my coworkers, professors and friends when I was in university. That was a given because I loved making sweets for people and seeing their smile on their face when they received chocolate made me really happy. I loved that feeling. The last time I gave handmade Honmei chocolate to someone (in this case a significant other or a person I was fond of) the relationship didn‘t last very long. Actually thinking back about it, I dont think I ever received chocolate for white day either (not even from the person I would be dating either o_____o ) The thing is that right now I currently don’t have anyone to give honmei chocolate to in Japan so I feel like there is just no point in me making it. Ahaha! Maybe that’s too much of a personal thing but its just my experience. I actually don’t think Ill be making Honmei sweets for a while, which might actually be a good thing because it will give me some time to think about myself for a bit (: This year, I think I’ll make a cheesecake for my coworkers and buy myself some jiko chocolate to treat myself before my trip to Korea. Because even though Valentine’s Day is all about loving and spending time with one another, its also important to love And treat yourself well too.

But Hey, who knows, maybe my senpai from high school will come around again and I’ll finally get to do the long awaited kokuhaku 告白 that I couldn’t do in High school hahahahaha~!