Celebrating My Japanese Boyfriend's Birthday

This year was my third year celebrating my boyfriend’s birthday. The first year, I was completely bewildered on what to do since he is Japanese. However, I just finished the third one, and I am starting to feel a bit more confident. 

As a whole, it seems like birthdays are not as much of a big deal in Japan compared to the United States. That being said, couples still tend to get gifts and eat together.

This year my boyfriend’s birthday was on a Tuesday, so it really limited my options. Since we couldn’t do much on his birthday, I opted to get him a large gift instead. I bought him a Nintendo Switch. Funny story, it barely made it in time. The delivery kept getting delayed. It was finally delivered at 8 pm on his birthday. Woops!

Aside from his present, I picked him up two little cakes from the local cake shop. They were nice enough to give me some free candles as well! My boyfriend loves both chocolate and cheesecake; I just couldn’t decide which one to get him, which is why I ended up purchasing them both. I also got myself a small lemony cake.

Honestly, it looks better than it tasted... 

Once I got home from work, I shoved the little cakes in my fridge, and got to work on his birthday meal. I made him ginger pork since it is his favorite dish that I can make. After we ate, I went in to the kitchen and tried to surprise him with the cakes, although he peeked. By the time we finished the cake, his present finally arrived. Since it was a game, that is what he did for the rest of the night! Haha.

Near the beginning, I was very nervous about what was expected from me culturally that I was not aware of. However, in the end, I end up doing something pretty similar to what I would do back in America. I guess it all depends of the tone of the relationship. One difference that I did notice was that everyone was surprised that I gave him something related to games. Apparently, girls do not give presents like that in Japan because they think their boyfriend will start to ignore them because they are obsessed with games, which is true to a point, but I feel like it is something girls in the States are used to giving as presents. I mean, at the end of the day, we all have a hobby, don’t we?