WHAT LITTLE BOYS ARE MADE OF

---

No sooner do we absorb the Japanese government's announcement that Regaine (a remedy for male baldness) and Viagra (a remedy for male impotence) will be rushed through the official approval process and available within the year, than we have to steel ourselves for Valentine's Day in Japan.

What, you wonder, is the connection? Well, both have to do with old goats and their tenacious grip on power in Japan.

The same old men who declared that contraceptive pills are "hormone disrupters" which must be kept out of the hands of Japanese women, have it seems, dictated the rules of Valentine's Day here: women shall give chocolate to men. And not to the young males whose attention they may actually feel like courting, but to the crusty old bosses whose tea cups they fill and ashtrays they empty every other day of the year.

Valentine's Day is the legacy of an economic stimulus measure adopted during Japan's pre-war recession, one far worse than the present troubles. The ailing confectionery industry seized the idea of importing a new holiday that offered good commercial potential. But in order to target female consumers, it deliberately bungled the translation and perverted the chivalric spirit of the holiday.

For more than half a century since, Valentine Day in Japan has been marked by a massive transfer of wealth, from OLs (office ladies) to OGs (Old Goats). In a single day, more than 30 million kilograms of chocolate, worth approximately JY100 billion, will be transferred from Japan's young working women to their male colleagues and supervisors. It's hard to imagine a more regressive form of taxation.


WHAT LITTLE GIRLS ARE MADE OF

---

What are the prospects for repealing this injustice? Not great under the current cabal of men who rule on hormones. In fact, the grip is likely to be tightened as more information comes out revealing chocolate itself to be one of the most marvelous hormone disrupters ever discovered, with most of its benefits accruing to women. As Debra Waterhouse pointed out in her book Why Women Need Chocolate, we know:

Chocolate makes us feel good. By raising the level of serotonin, or neurotransmitters, chocolate counteracts depression, insomnia, anxiety, suicide, migraines, and pre-menstrual syndrome. The natural instinct is to hoard and consume chocolate during the short days of winter. Thus most chocolate in the US is consumed during the winter holidays. Halloween takes gold medal, followed by Easter, Christmas and lastly Valentine's Day. The nearly exclusive concentration of chocolate consumption on Valentine's Day is, surprise surprise, unique to Japan.

Chocolate spurs us to action. The stimulating effect of caffeine in chocolate is no secret. The British Whippet Racing Association started testing dogs for chocolate after it found that owners were feeding them chocolate drops to make them run faster.

Chocolate empowers us. It restores our self-control by raising the low serotonin levels that are associated with obsessive/ compulsive disorders, stress, obesity and addiction.

Chocolate relaxes us. By causing the brain to release endorphins, chocolate induces the euphoric calm known as "runner's high."

Chocolate eases our pain. It is a natural analgesic. It contains anandamide, which mimics the effects of marijuana in relieving pain. And yes,

Chocolate is an aphrodisiac - but only when eaten, not given.

It is not surprising in light of these benefits to find that chocolate also increases the efficiency and value of women's work. As the International Labor Organisation recently documented, in economic terms women have greater wage equality in those countries where chocolate consumption is highest. For example, in Denmark, where they eat on average 7.5kg of chocolate per person per year, women's wages are 83 percent of their male counterparts'. However, in Japan, with a meager 1.6kg chocolate consumption rate, women earn just 51 percent of their male colleagues' salaries.


SWEET JUSTICE

"Japanese men don't eat sweets. We drink." (As if eating an M&M at two o'clock in the afternoon will spoil his beer at seven.) I've grown used to hearing this canard from Japanese men, but I was surprised to hear it backed up by women. Real men don't eat sweets.

So who eats all of the chocolate, I wondered. Does it get passed around to the pool of OLs?

"Oh no, that would hurt their feelings."
"There are too many of them."
"They can't eat at their desks."
"They're all on diets."

So what happens to all the chocolate?
The wives eat it.
There is some justice.


JAPANESE CHOCOLATE - MORE THAN JUST A POCKY STICK

Message de Rose is only a few subway stops away from the factory, but a world apart. An oasis of pink marble, silver trays and doilies, it is strategically tucked in the high-rent Kyobashi neighborhood among Japan's leading banks, insurance and trading companies. Three weeks before Valentine's Day, the store is eerily calm, as if its sales staff are in pre-deluge meditation. (With Valentine's Day falling on Sunday, and the Constitution Day national holiday on the Thursday, there will be two waves, the first on Wednesday with women who will have their chocolates sent, and the second on Friday with those who will hand them over in person.)

Curiously enough, the woman behind the counter is one Miki Ohyama, a pop singer whose CD Anata no Tonari was released by Bandai last May. With little expectation of much custom on a January morning, she has time to point out the items likely to be snapped up this year, like the miniature pill box of six chocolate roses, each smaller than a pea (now what's the message there?), to an airy bouquet that's more doily than chocolate but capable of filling an impressive-size box. The most popular gift is the oval tray of assorted roses for JY3000. That's considerably less than the JY5000 average spend estimate for 1997.

Miki, I ask, will you take a vacation after it's all over? Yes, she sighs, I'm scheduled to sing at New York's Carnegie Hall in March.

But not until after March 14, when the shop has to meet the demand of White Day, that sop to Japanese women when the recipients of giri-choco are supposed to reciprocate with a gift of white chocolate.

It's hardly an after-shock to Valentine's Day, though. When I ask Message de Rose's manager Telu Kubota what the local magnates are likely to buy, she waves dismissively at a tray of JY250 cellophane-wrapped offerings. "I call it 'thank-you-very-much-chocolate.'"

At least those working women will get to eat it. All by themselves. At their desks, while rifling their bosses' important papers.

And that, readers, is why women's chocolate is white.

Message de Rose
Kyobashi 3-7-1, Chuo-ku, Tokyo Tel 3561-1066
Take the Ginza line to Kyobashi Station. Take Exit 1 and the store is directly in front of you. For two weeks before Valentine's Day only, Message de Rose chocolates are also sold at Matsuya department store in Ginza and Takashimaya in Futakotamagawa.