Valentine thoughts, customs and stories from UPI's eyes and ears around the world:
* In THAILAND, where Valentine's Day is serious business, the government issued what it claimed were the world's first scented postage stamps to commemorate the big day. A million of the rose-scented stamps went on sale in early February and were quickly snapped up by collectors and lovers. Meanwhile, Bangkok's "Love Village" is awarding marriage certificates in ruby-studded gold frames to 10 lucky couples who register their marriage on Valentine's Day. District officials in Bang Rak, which means "Love Village" in Thai, said the framed marriage certificates, each bedecked with 18 rubies, would be given to the winners of a lucky drawing at a local department store on Thursday. They expect about 1,200 newlywed couples to register their marriage in the district this Valentine's Day, surpassing last year's record of 1,100 couples. (John Hail, Bangkok)
* A small cross-section of PAKISTANI youth, especially in cities, loves to celebrate Valentine's Day with enthusiasm. People in the big cities celebrate the day with the exchange of flowers and of messages, which newspapers print in special editions. Many restaurants organize special menus for lunch and dinner, and people flock to flower markets in their cities. In Pakistani society, where Islamic hard-liners strongly discourage New Year celebrations and honor killing is a common practice, it is very pleasant to celebrate a love day. (Aamir Shah, Islamabad)
* In LEBANON, shops and restaurants hard-hit by economic woes are trying to attract lovers with new and original ideas to celebrate Valentine's Day. Restaurants offer tempting menus with love songs, flowers and gifts at prices ranging from an average of $40 per couple to $80. A well-known flower shop promises a serenade with every bouquet of roses. The al-Mustaqbal newspaper opted to remind lovers on Valentine's Day of old love poems performed by the most famous Arab singers, like Egytian Oum Koulsoum and Mohammed Abdel Wahhab as well as Lebanon's Feyrouz. (Dalal Saoud, Beirut)
* In JAPAN, where some things are done differently compared with much of the West (in Japan, pages in books, magazines and newspapers are flipped from right to left; cars are driven on the left side of the road, as they are in the United Kingdom), the girls give the boys gifts, mostly chocolates, on Valentine's Day. The boys are supposed to return the favor on March 14. (Patrick Killen, Tokyo)
* FRANCE is indeed a land of love, but sadly, not THE land of love. A survey published this week by the international condom company Durex places France seventh in the average number of sexual relations per year. The tally adds up to 110 lovemaking sessions a year for the French -- or about once every three days -- compared to 124 for the Americans. But the French clearly like variety. The average Gaul has about 13.2 different partners. That's second only to Americans, who lead the world with 14.3 partners, according to the Durex study. The Brits fare middlingly, with about 8.8 partners on average, and the Indians and Chinese round out the list with 3 and 2.1 different partners, respectively. Le Parisien newspaper, which published some extracts of the study, called France's sexual prowress "not bad." (Lisa Bryant, Paris)
* In YUGOSLAVIA, Serbs and Montenegrins are mostly Greek Orthodox Christians and they have no St. Valentine in their church calendar. Yet very many of them have been to Western countries in recent decades as guest workers or political emigrants and have brought home the tradition of celebrating Feb. 14 as a lover's festival. The date coincides with St. Trifun's Day so the Orthodox saint has been proclaimed the patron of women and wine. Many Belgrade cafes where young people flock regularly were decorated on Wednesday night with hearts made up of roses. (Stevan Zivanovic, Belgrade)
* The TURKS, a ready audience for any consumer gimmick, have been embracing Feb. 14 with the same eagerness they have accorded Mother's Day or Father's Day for more than a decade now. It is impossible not to notice the full-page newspaper ads, pink balloons, heart-shaped candies and all sorts of fuzzy animals that are readily bought for loved ones as the occasion's name in Turkey is "The Beloved Day." Sometimes, however, Beloved Day can bring on family rows, when forgetfulness or a shortage of cash leads a husband to come home empty-handed to his wife, who reacts like a heartbroken teenager. (Seva Ulman, Ankara)
* St. Valentine's Day is still honored in BRITAIN, although a bit of the romance appears to have gone out the barred window. Police in Brighton, England, are mailing Valentine's Day cards -- to their top 10 car thieves and burglars. The poem inside the cards reads: "Will you be my valentine?/ I'm hoping we can meet/ We have a cozy cell prepared/ Here at John Street ... " (Al Webb, London)
* ALBANIANS indeed celebrate Valentine's Day on Feb. 14. It is a renewed tradition in Albania, because it has been interrupted for more than 45 years during the communism period. Both the young generation and adults give gifts to their girlfriends or wives. Several concerts are organized in Tirana and other Albanian towns while the students of high schools and universities organize parties. Restaurants, pizzerias, pubs, disco-clubs are overpopulated on the Valentine's Day. And the happiest of all on Valentine's Day are jewelery shop owners, who make a good profit. (Lulzim Cota, Tirana)
* This is the day of the year that flower and chocolate sellers wait for! While the bitter and hard-bitten among us AUSTRALIANS (and there are many here in Oz) deride it as yet another gooey Americanism like Halloween and Mother's Day that's come to invade our shores (and our hip pockets), there are those young, infatuated and soft-centered souls who treat it with great import. They must be demented! (Stephen Sheldon, Sydney)
* Valentine's Day is a relatively new concept for JORDANIANS -- for the affluent ones who reside in Western Amman who have access to the Internet and satellite televisions and can afford to buy a red rose on Feb. 14 for 10 times its value. Thus entrepreneurs design the occasion to attract the Jordanians who want to buy an expensive dinner for a sweetheart or a romantic overnight in one of the many five-star hotels. The younger ones from Amman's expensive private schools make the best customers for the early evening coffee shops, movie theaters, gift shops and Hallmark card shops. But for the majority of the young and old in this country, Feb. 14 is like any other day, consumed with a struggle to make a living and putting food on the table. (Sana Abdallah-Kamal, Amman)
* Can't even begin to tell you how much it's a non-celebration in ARGENTINA these days ... (Rodolfo A. Windhausen, United Nations, commenting on his native and now cash-strapped Buenos Aires)
* Valentine's Day is not especially popular in UZBEKISTAN. Only some very young people in cities celebrate it, presenting valentines or verbally giving their compliments to sweethearts. That doesn't mean there aren't exceptions, however. One respected married man, who has loved another woman from afar for many years, conveys his greetings on Valentine's Day every year. Another woman, 60, received a letter from her former husband many years after their divorce. In it he said he had not forgotten her and asked her to send him a photograph of her and her daughters. She received the letter on Feb. 14. (Marina Kozlova, Tashkent)
* In SYRIA, where Valentine's Day has been celebrated less than 10 years, the price of one red rose from 70 cents to $2 for Valentine's Day while shops decorated their windows with red balloons and hearts. You can even buy a bird for the occasion or, for those who prefer their gifts fuzzy, two white mice in a red cage. The stagnant economy has cramped sales, however: Salim Samaan, the owner of a flower shop in Damascus noted a drop in buying flowers this year because of the "difficult living conditions." A Valentine dinner at a city restaurant or nightclub could reach $120 per couple at a time the average monthly salary of an employee does not exceed $80. (Thaana Imam, Damascus)
* Valentine's Day is quite new to BULGARIA. It began to gain popularity after the fall of communism in 1989, particularly among young people. Before that almost no one had heard of such a thing. Now we add an extra twist: Bulgaria is a wine-producing country, and Valentine's Day coincides with an ancient festival known as St. Trifon's Day, dedicated to wines and vines. It is on this day that vine growers start cropping their plants, and most Bulgarians believe that to be healthy one should honor St. Trifon by drinking a lot of wine on Feb. 14. One wine producer cashed in several years ago by registering St. Valentine as a brand name. He advertises his St. Valentine wines as an "elixir of love" and they are among the most popular in the country. Sales are particularly high on Feb. 14 as Bulgarians enjoy the double pleasure of combining traditions of East and West. (Vladimir Zhelyazkov, Sofia)
(Compiled and edited by Elizabeth Manning, UPI's deputy international editor.)
