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GoTo Shop: The mandatory Valentine

By SHIHOKO GOTO, UPI Senior Business Correspondent

TOKYO, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Satomi Kurihara is on a mission.

"I need to choose 15 boxes, and get them wrapped, in the next 15 minutes," she said as she scoured the chocolate aisle of Sony Plaza, a store that specializes in selling fancy knick-knacks for young, single women in Tokyo's swank Ginza district.

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With less than a week to go until Valentine's Day, single female workers across Japan are buying up chocolate in bulk to give to the men in their lives. But while Valentine's is ultimately a day for people in love, or professing love to a potential sweetheart, Feb. 14 has another dimension in Japan.

It's giri-choco, or "obligation chocolate", day.

When Japan was first introduced to Valentine's Day after World War II by American confectioners, Japanese retailers took it a step further by encouraging so-called office ladies to pay respect to their male bosses by presenting them with chocolate, as well as sending sweets to their boyfriends.

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"It's a bit silly, really, but since all the other women are giving chocolate to their bosses, there's peer pressure for me to give as well," Kurihara sighed.

"And you know, the guys do like going back home with a big bag of chocolate to boast to their wives about how popular they are at work, which is sort of cute...I know my dad really likes getting chocolate, and I looked forward to him coming home (on the 14th) when I was a kid," she added.

Mandatory gift-giving is far from a novel concept in Japan. Big corporations still adhere to the practice of giving seasonal gifts to their clients twice a year, once in summer and once at the end of the year, while people give gifts on all occasions, from weddings to graduation, matriculation, and getting a job.

Still, giri-choco giving can add up, as the average obligation chocolate costs about $5 each. Just handing over a Snickers bar to the boss is unacceptable, as the candy must be beautifully wrapped and hopefully be unique too to show how much thought had gone into selecting the gift.

But as Japan's economy has continued to slide, the amount of money women spend on their bosses continues to dwindle as well.

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One 34-year-old accountant at a major insurance company said that a decade ago, female employees not only spent close to $10 per chocolate box for the boss, but they also bought sweets for men outside their own immediate divisions.

"We've become much more pragmatic since," she said, adding that the practice now is for about 10 women to pool their money and buy chocolates collectively. As a result, women only have to cough up about $10 to get chocolates for about 20 men, even though that means the male workers now have far fewer chocolates to take back home.

Yet that could be a relief for many men.

For like all gift-giving practices in Japan, every present must be thanked for by getting a sender a gift in return. As a result, men are obliged to thank the women for the giri-choco on so-called "White Day," which retailers have deemed is on March 14.

Moreover, until recently, the unwritten rule was that men had to buy women a present at least seven times the value of the original gift, so a $5 chocolate required a $35 present in return.

With the collapse of Japan's bubble economy, however, that rule of thumb has gone out the door. Still, bosses must get something for each female employees to thank them for the chocolates, even if they only gave a single chocolate collectively to him. But at least it can be something fairly simple such as cookies or hard candy.

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Still, true love has remained immune to the ebbs and flows of the domestic economy.

Women are still eager to spend money and effort for their true love, or "honmei."

Sony Plaza, for instance, has a special section devoted to pricey, hand-crafted imported chocolates carefully stored behind a glass shelf, unlike the cheaper boxes that are stacked up in the aisles. It also has an area where women can buy the ingredients to make their own chocolates and chocolate cakes for that one special man.

Meanwhile, department sales are reporting strong demand for pink ties and heart-emblazoned t-shirts as women seek to give non-chocolate gifts to the men in their lives who don't have a sweet tooth. And stores too are expecting men to respond in kind to their sweethearts come White Day.

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(GoToShop is a biweekly musing on where or where not to spend one's hard-earned paycheck. If there is, indeed, an opposite and equal reaction for every action, then shopping is no exception. The fine art of shopping can be a political statement, a social manifestation, an economic triumph -- or simply a dud decision on the part of the consumer. Comments to [email protected])

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