Good old chocolates tell it all…
In Japan, women get busy stocking up on chocolates, because it’s on Valentine’s Day that she goes around gifting chocolates to her boss, co-workers, male friends but especially someone she is romantically interested in. The man has exactly a month to come, up with the perfect return gift to be given to the woman on March 14, also called White Day!
Guess who I am?
And then there are men who like to complicate things a little bit to add spice to the whole thing! In a quirky tradition, men send anonymous love notes to the women they love and paste a pressed flower for extra effect. Of course it doesn’t make sense at all if the women can’t guess who it is from, so they leave a clue – dots on the notes, corresponding to the number of letters in their names. We assume women are left fervently counting and writing down their guesses. If they do guess their secret admirer correctly, they get an Easter egg as a prize on Easter!
Handsome dreams
Bay leaves aren’t just flavour enhancers; they’re useful dream generators, too! In England, a woman would sleep with five bay leaves in each corner of the pillow and the centre in the hope that it would reveal her true love! It remains a suspense what would happen when she does approach her dream man and tell him he’s been chosen for her!
A bus for singles…
In Finland and Estonia, Valentine’s Day is more of a ‘Friend’s Day’ where people expressed their love and appreciation to true friends, not lovers. However, all isn’t lost. There’s still an option to board a ‘love bus’ that gives single men and women the chance to find matches there.
Noodles speak!
Talk about whiners, single men and women symbolically silently complain how bitter it is to be single by eating a bowl of black noodles. There’s no harm in stuffing up on some extra carbs while you’re worrying about your ‘single’ status, making this a sensible tradition.
Spooning some love
Welsh men think differently why go for cards and hearts when you can express your love with a spoon? For years, Welsh men have hand-crafted spoons to present to the ladies they wish to marry. The spoons had symbolic elements for instance, keys represented a man’s heart while wheels represented hard work and the number of beads signified all the offspring he’d like to have!
A romantic pilgrimage
Many Poles make a romantic pilgrimage to the city of Chelmno, a small town along the Ner River to admire the relics of St Valentine. It is believed that a visit to this town would guarantee a happy marriage and of course, a happy shopping experience considering all the things sold here around this time of year!
Picture Credit : Google
