The Ballad of Craig and Yumiko, verse 2

First Date

The Japanese do Valentine’s Day a bit differently. Women give chocolate or other gifts to the men in their lives: boyfriends, bosses, brothers, former English teachers. Men have an opportunity to reciprocate on White Day, March 14, if they are so inclined.

(Take a guess: Why is White Day called White Day? Answer.)

Thus it was that Yumiko sent to Craig some chocolates for Valentine’s Day. Twenty-nine anxious days later, Craig—not entirely sure of the significance of Yumiko’s action or his own—delivered a box of chocolate into the hands of Yumiko’s startled mother. Accompanying the chocolate was a card thanking Yumiko for her Valentine gift and saying

• that Craig had been thinking a lot about their friendship
• that he wasn’t sure how the relationship would develop in the future
• that he wanted to get together with Yumiko soon

Craig considered this a big, brave step forward. Yumiko, of course, was devastated. She took it as a Japanese “no”—polite, indirect, even positive in tone, but unalterably negative all the same.

So, when Craig phoned a few days later to say that he wanted to meet her, it was with little expectancy or excitement that she accepted. You can imagine her puzzlement, on the day of their rendezvous, when Craig observed that this was their first date. What did he mean by that?

That first date was pleasant, well-mannered and decidedly ho-hum, but that didn’t prevent them from later having a second date. It was on that second date that the romance began to blossom. From that point on, the two lovebirds were walking on air. Had they not lived three hours apart—with Tokyo, Kawasaki and Yokohama arrayed between them—they might have seen each other more than a couple of times a month.

Next: Pop Goes the Question