History
By Catherine Rose
St Valentine’s Day Customs
Around the World Valentine’s Day is celebrated across the globe in different ways This month, Valentine’s Day will see us buying our loved ones cards, flowers and gifts and perhaps sharing a romantic meal. Many countries around the world celebrate Valentine’s Day, or an equivalent not necessarily on 14th February. Always seen as a nation of romantics, it is believed that the first Valentine was sent in France when Charles, Duke of Orleans, wrote love letters to his wife from prison in 1415. Although Valentine’s Day is celebrated across the country, the French village of Saint-Valentin hosts a special three-day festival from 13th to 15th February, when trees and houses are bedecked with hearts, love letters and red roses. It is traditional for lovers to propose in Le Jardin des Amoreux (The Lovers’ Garden) beneath a decorated willow tree known as Le Saule aux Coeurs (the Willow of Hearts). One of the precursors to Valentine’s Day was the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia. At this festival, it was customary for women to wear the name of their beloved on their arm. This ritual
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continues in South Africa where women pin paper hearts with the name of their sweetheart onto their sleeves thus letting them know they have a secret admirer. It is possible that this ancient tradition is where the expression ‘wearing your heart on your sleeve’ comes from. Since the 1930s, women in Japan have presented boxes of fabulously coloured and decorated chocolates on Valentine’s Day. The tradition began there in 1936 when confectioner Morozoff Ltd placed the first advert for Valentine’s Day gifts in an English newspaper aimed at the expatriate community. Over the next forty years Valentine’s Day gained a foothold in Japan, but it is celebrated with a twist because women are the givers. The chocolate gifts have a definite hierarchy. Chocolate presented to a lover is honmei-choko, literally meaning ‘favourite’ or ‘sincere’ chocolate, and is sometimes home-made. But women also give chocolate to important men in their life with whom they have no romantic connection, such as their boss. This type of chocolate is called giri-choko or ‘obligation chocolate’. If the woman doesn’t particularly like the recipient but is obliged
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