母の日 – Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day actually started in West Virginia.  When the person named Ann Jarvis, who was a social activist during the American Civil War, passed away, her daughter donated 500 carnations to the church in West Virginia for the mother’s funeral attendees.  This was the origin of Mother’s Day. This tradition reached Japan and we started celebrating Mother’s Day. Interestingly, in Japan we kept the ritual of sending carnations and almost always give carnations to our mothers instead of any other flowers, whereas in the U.S. roses are much more mainstream on Mother’s Day.

In the language of flowers white carnations mean “respect”, red ones mean “mother’s love” and pink ones mean “gratitude”.  However, yellow ones mean “jealousy” and “disrespect”, so you may want to avoid yellow ones as a gift. lol