Valentine's Day - History, Tradition and Gift Tips
Summary: Writing letters takes time and effort, but it can be a good option for shy people. For things you can't express with words, you can put them to writing. In the age of digital communication, people are nostalgic for something more traditional. You have a great chance to win a girl's heart with written words this Valentine's Day.
February 14 is a bane to many singles. St. Valentine, St. Chocolatetine, St. You-are-mine-tine, call it whatever you want, it has been celebrated worldwide in every country. The day presents itself as the ultimate chocolate advertising, where sales worldwide spiked yet chocolate may not be the only thing we need to impress our counterpart.
Writing love/tummy swirling letters is a good beginning of dating for shy man. We might not all be the extrovert that we wish to be, writing shall be the only not so scary way for us to express love. To send such message of love to her/him takes guts and brains. Take hours or weeks off for one to think of the right word for him/her it is exhausting. So what shall we do?
Tradition might sound weird to such modern era celebration. But to know your past is to master the future, so before we venture to the future let’s look back on the history of Valentine’s Day.
The equivalent to Valentine’s Day in China is Qixi, which falls on 7th Jul in Chinese lunar calendar, so you can also call it the Seventh Night Festival. According to Chinese lore, Zhinu, a heavenly king’s daughter, and Niulang, a poor cowherd, fell in love, married and had twins. Zhinu’s father was so angry when he learned of their marriage, he sent his queen to bring Zhinu back to the heaven. Upon hearing the cries of Niulang and the children, the king allowed Zhinu and Niulang to meet once a year on the day of Qixi.
On that day, this couple reunited through the help of a bridge made up of magpies. Yes it does sound weird, so sometime some writer will say it is a bridge make up of stars, which sounds more fairytale-ish. The Chinese’s Valentine bore on the concept that two lovers try everything they can to overcome great obstacles but still fail for different reasons.
Japanese have mixed both Western and Chinese Valentine’s Day to their own celebration list, which also means more spending more love to go around. They celebrated Valentine’s Day on Feb 14, but it’s mainly for girls giving out chocolate to their loved ones. Instead of purchasing the chocolate from shop, the handmade chocolate is more welcomed in their culture. Aside of giving chocolate to express love, they will also give a relatively inexpensive type of chocolate called “giri choco” to males that they have no romantic attachment, such as casual acquaintance, and co-workers. In return, men will give women small gifts on White Day as reciprocation, which we will touch on it in the other article.
Japanese Valentine’s Day called “tanabata” is similar to Chinese Qixi which celebrated around the same time. The difference is the act of making wishes - young people will write down their wishes about love and hang it on a bamboo tree or a cane. In legend, the wish will be saw by the heavens and will be granted, hence taller the wish were hanged the better. Don’t climb too high…
Like many parts of the world, Valentine's Day in South Africa is celebrated with great passion and enthusiasm. Young girls celebrate the occasion by following an ancient Roman tradition as “Lupercalia”. According to this traditional festival, young girls wear their hearts and pin their lovers name on their sleeves. In some cases, this is how South African men learn of their secret admirers.
France the city of light, symbol of love and romance, it’ll be weird if I wouldn’t mention it at least once in an article of love. The tradition of it was the Loterie d’amour, or “drawing for love”. As it named the men and women would fill houses that faces one another, and then take turns calling out to one another and pairing off. Men who weren’t satisfied with their match could simply leave a woman for another, and the women left unmatched gathered afterward for a bonfire. And what happen at the bonfire? The women will burn pictures of the men who wronged them and hurled swears and insults at the opposite sex…Although the government banned the tradition… but the stories goes on, there might be a less violent version of it going around. Peace and love!
Back to our Eastern continental, South Korea is a well famous idol factory now, apparently Korea can factory anything. Valentine’s here is about the same which men shower their love ones with chocolates but up the ante with extra gifts, ranged to… mostly anything. Koreans celebrate on three different days, while women giving gifts on Feb 14, and men on March 14. For the singles, they get together on April 14, which called Black Day in Korea, eating jajangmyeon (black-bean noodles), to “celebrate” their singledom. As one Asian site described it “a day lonely hearts try to ease their pain by diving head first into a bowl of noodles.” Wait…ease pain by eating noodles? Heal your heart with food, well, it makes sense to some extent.
Sometimes we forgot that Valentine’s Day is actually St. Valentine’s Day. Do you know St. Valentine was an Italian? Go to Europe, the Italians, the elegant people, the girls tended to wake up earlier on Valentine’s Day. They work up before dawn to spot their future husbands. The belief was the first man that a woman saw on Valentine’s Day will either be their future husband or greatly assemble it. Today they will exchange gifts between lovers and have romantic dinners. As known for Italian way of saying I love you, Baci Perugina, which is a small chocolate covered with hazelnuts wrapped with a love note printed in four languages. The secret of Baci Perugina is that romantic quote that perfectly voice for people who want to express their love. The savoring moment of a sweet chocolate must be more special with a love note.
Remember that I said it’s weird if one article about love without mention of Paris at least once? The word Paris oozes romantic in modern era, just speak or pronounce it will make people think of romance. As noted previously, shy man writes Valentine’s card to express feelings. It’s said that the first Valentine’s Day card originated from France when Charles, Duke of Orleans, sent love letters to his wife while imprisoned in 1415. With that as a spark of a tradition, Valentine’s Day cards remained a popular tradition in France and around the world.
In the digital age, Valentine’s Day card faces the destiny that fall into disuse, but it survived in many new ways thanks to the technology boom. For example, we can create a funky, interactive and charming Valentine’s card to express our feelings to the loved one via messages, emails or social media. If you are thinking about DIY Valentine’s gift, you can start with the Valentine’s Day card.
A good picture is more powerful than a thousand words, and a moving picture could win a million. What if adding some touching words and music with photos? You can nail the girl that you’ve been dying for. AmoLink is your first choice to create a Valentine’s Day photo card to the one you cared.
For tutorials, you can easily learn from the related articles as below. Now, make your Valentine's day cards and impress someone!
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