V-day

valentines has always been a girl-oriented day for me. as far as i could remember, i only gave valentine cards to my girl friends, not so much the boys. it probably didn't help that my class had only 40 people and 75% were made up of girls. my high school made valentine grams every year as a way for the senior class to raise funds, and it was a trend to have these cards delivered to your close friends, if not your dear loved ones. for the couples, the boys had the option to give the girl a flower and if i remember correctly, a song to dedicate performed by our talented boy singers in front of everyone. i truly enjoyed being the spectator of this, but never would i have liked it if that happened to me.

so the day would end, i would go home, re-read what my friends wrote in my valentine grams and put it up on my wall just because back in middle/high school you posted everything you could on your wall. plus the illustrations on these v-grams were pretty cute and comical. my mom's friend walked by as i was pinning these up and she made a comment about how all these boys were after me. but when i mentioned that these were all from girls, she looked at me funny, probably worried about my sexual orientation all of a sudden. and of course i just had to add the fact that i wrote to them too. probably shouldn't have said that because at that point, she just walked away.

anyways, even a worldwide common holiday like valentines day come in cultural differences. back in japan, it's the girl's responsibility to send something to the guys. reverse of how things are here in the states and probably most western countries. then on march 14th, also known as "white day," the guys return something back to the girls. korea follows this same pattern except they have an additional tradition called "black day" on april 14th. a day especially made for the single people who didn't receive anything on both valentines day and white day to mourn their single life by eating this black noodle called "jajangmyeon." pathetically sad but i don't know, i probably would go in and eat it anyways even if i wasn't single.

valentines is overrated. it's purely for the economy and to make people spend money. nevertheless, i'm happy to say that i'm blessed to have my boyfriend, despite the distance, he has been patient with me. while he studies hard in med school, i'll be spending valentines day having hot pot with my friends here :P