The Dai-ni Button Episode
March 22, 2008 by Marie
One of my junior high students wrote about a graduation ceremony at her school. She said that her sempai gave one of her friends a button but this friend didn’t particularly like this sempai. And also that one other friend took home 15 buttons but couldn’t remember from whom she had taken the buttons. Puzzled, I asked some of the teachers about these “buttons”. They all started to laugh, saying that it was common among junior and senior high school girls to ask for the Dai-ni button (第二ボタン, button found second from the top on a boy’s school coat) of a sempai they liked, and the sempai gave it if he liked the kohai who asked.
So then the people in the office started to talk about how they did or didn’t receive Dai-ni buttons. One guy said that he wasn’t that cool at that time so no one ever asked for his Dai-ni button. We were totally laughing at this point (you’d have to know this guy’s history to find it funny, sorry). The talk moved from that to the recently celebrated White Day, of which I asked why it was so popular among young people to have these subtle “I like you” exchanges. One lady explained that generally Japanese people were shy and that without these occasions, they would have no chance to tell each other their feelings. As most things here are left unsaid, but understood by all anyway, and everything is about subtlety, I still feel like an outsider wondering about Dai-ni buttons and gift exchanges…
Friday night on TBS they did a segment on this, complete with the young lass plucking the fella out of the crowd, telling him she liked him and then he pulled the button from his jacket and gave it to her …. you can imagine the panels reaction …… sugoii, kawaii etc …… it was funny to watch.
I heard that they ask for the second button because it should be the one nearest to the heart.
In a country where people seems to be craving that much for romanticism, and yet being unable to express their feeling, sometimes westerners must looks like wolves in a sheep herd.
Thanks for the comments, Neil and simaldeff!
It was my first time to hear about this Dai-ni button thing… when asked I couldn’t relate it to anything done abroad… maybe exchanging college rings? or getting the football captain’s varsity jacket?
Thanks for the explanation about why it’s the second button, simaldeff. It should be obvious why, but I didn’t think about it…
I was wondering about how they view foreigners in that respect, too. It might be interesting to find out…
This Dai-ni button thing is really something lovely. Once again, it’s all about subtlety, an aspect of that culture that must be very agreeable when experienced.
Hi Moka!
Yeah, it does sound like good high school fun. Subtlety is kind of nice…