Hi, everyone. And welcome back to happy hour, 欢迎回来酒馆.

It's that time of the year, isn't it？It's time for a Valentine's, no, anti-Valentine's Day special.

又到了一年的情人节或者说是反情人节特辑, well love it or hate it, it happens every year.

Just about as soon as the calendar turns over, love is in the air; or to be more precise, in the shopping centers, restaurants, bars, on all sorts of e-commerce platforms and all over social media.

Throughout early February, you can't turn around without seeing boxes of chocolate, Teddy bears holding a heart and all sorts of Valentine's Day decorations.

Loved by some, loathed by others, Valentine's day is widely regarded as the ultimate day of cheesy, unapologetic romance.

So whether you go all out, splurge on the luxury Valentine's Day experience for you and your sweetheart, or you prefer to go low key, just ignore the holiday together; or if you are hopelessly single.

I'm sure at some point, you've wondered about the origin of Valentine's Day where did it come from？

Now I know a lot of people in China would say it's a western holiday, but where in the West and when, and most importantly how?

While some may be vaguely aware that the occasion takes its place from a famous person called Valentine or Saint Valentine, they may not be acquainted with the full history of Valentine's Day.

可能有人知道西方的情人节是圣瓦伦丁节, 就是有一个人叫圣瓦伦丁.

The history of Valentine's Day actually finds its roots in ancient Rome and it's not as rosy and romantic as you might want to believe. So in today's episode, let's dig deeper into the un-romantic history of Valentine's Day.

So one thing to keep in mind, saint Valentine actually could refer to several people. We don't really know which saint Valentine the holiday technically celebrates.

The Catholic church has records of at least three different martyrs named Valentine or Valentinos.

天主教里至少有三个不同的martyr, 就是殉道者叫瓦伦丁, according to one version, which is probably the most well-known version of Saint Valentine's history, Valentine was an ordinary priest who lived in the third century.

He was going about his usual priestly duties during a time when Rome was ruled by the emperor Claudius II.

Claudius had been under the impression that lagging enlistment into his Roman army was because of the man's strong attachment to their wives and lovers.

To him, the solution was simple. So the emperor banned all marriages and engagement for young men to ensure that more young men joined the Roman military ranks.

当时的罗马皇帝为了保证罗马的小伙子能够更一心一意的参军, 就脑子一抽, 想出了一个禁止所有年轻罗马男性结婚和订婚的法律.

Valentine who was the priest realized the injustice and cruelty of such a law, a decree, and continue to perform marriage ceremonies in secret.

When the emperor found out about what the priest was doing, he sentenced him to be clubbed to death. And then as if that wasn't enough, to have his head cut off.

So Valentine died supposedly on February the 14th around the year 270CE for his great service in the name of love, Valentine was named as saint.

So we got the name of the day Saint Valentine's Day.

There were other versions. For example, another Valentine supposedly helped Christians escape from prison and was also martyred for it. He was killed for the cause.

Yet in another version, a Valentine is said to have sent the first Valentine letter from prison allegedly to the jailer’s daughter. Legend has it. He signed the note from your Valentine a greeting we still use today.

所以关于圣瓦伦丁在历史和传说里也有很多不同的版本, but whichever Saint the holiday memorializes, we generally agree he was kind, heroic, and most importantly, very much pro-love, although having a head cut off and being martyred was probably more bloody than romantic.

Now a lot of these were legends. Did these Valentines really die on February the 14th？Not necessarily because much like Christmas, Easter, and other Christian holidays, people in the West may have first begun celebrating Valentine's Day in February in an effort to draw attention from a pagan holiday set at the same time. Back then pagan basically means outside of Christian, there are more primitive beliefs.

其实就跟现在我们熟知的很多基督教的节日一样, 像什么圣诞节、复活节, 圣瓦伦丁节, 或者西方的情人节, 其实也跟pagan holiday, 这个就是指的非基督教的所谓异教的节日.

This pagan holiday was called Lupercalia, 牧神节, a fertility festival dedicated to Faunus, the Roman god of agriculture as well as Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome.

当时罗马的牧神节是一个跟生殖丰产有关的节日, 庆祝的是罗马牧神以及罗马的创建者Romulus and Remus.

Now during the festival, Roman priests visited the cave where Romulus and Remus were set to have been raised by a she-wolf and sacrifice a goat for fertility, and a dog for purification.

Now so far, although it sounded a bit bloody, but at least it made sense, but then it got pretty weird. The priests then dipped the hide, the animal skin, in the blood and went around town smacking or hitting women and crop fields with the bloody hide to encourage fertility in the new year.

So you want women to have more babies and the crops to have more harvest by hitting them with bloody animal skin.

Doesn't sound very romantic, does it？Well, women also placed strips of paper with their names in a giant urn like a container as part of the celebration.

Again, it sounded normal. You would think they're making wishes. But actually the reason why women put their names in the giant urn is so that eligible bachelors, men who are not married, they could drew names out of the urn, and those they chose would become their partner for the year.

Just when you think ancient people were conservative, not the Romans; although many of those matches did end up getting married.

At the end of the 5th century, the Pope declared the holiday on Christian and replaced it with saint Valentine's Day instead.

罗马的教皇就说, 这是什么粗鄙的异教徒的holiday, 我们要用一个基督教的Saint Valentine's Day去取代它.

And then saint Valentine's Day pretty much became a Christian holiday. It was a religious one and like many other Christian feast days, Valentines didn't become associated with secular practices or non-religious practices until later.

In the Middle Ages, people thought the day also symbolized the beginning of birds mating season.

The first evidence of Valentine's Day having romantic connotations came in the 14th century through the poetry of Jeffrey Chaucer.

到了14世纪, 英国诗人乔叟的诗才第一次把圣瓦伦丁节和浪漫联系到了一起.

He said for this was on Saint Valentine's Day when every bird comes here to choose his mate.

I'm not sure if that's entirely romantic or just describing nature, but it is said that Chaucer wrote this to honor the engagement of king Richard II.

And later, William Shakespeare also referenced Valentine's Day in his work.

Now, while people did share Valentine's Day greetings with one another as early as the Middle Ages, written notes weren't so popular, probably because the literacy rate wasn't high, most people simply couldn't read or write.

Exchanging cards between lovers, family members and friends didn't become widely popular until the18th century. And in the 1900s, improvements in printing technology made exchanging cards easier.

But at that time, according to historians, cards were often a little off color, frequently including sexual innuendo that might make more prudish people blush nowadays.

I guess in a way that was their form of sexting maybe. And Valentine's Day, as we know, it today started to take form in the 19th century, early 20th century thanks in part to the boom of industrial revolution.

For example, in 1913, hallmark cards, this is a famous brand that made all these cards, they began mass producing Valentine's Day cards, sparking in the beginning of the commercial holiday that we see today.

A decade later, chocolatier Russell Stover had the innovative idea of selling chocolates in hard shape boxes encased in satin and black lace, as you still see so frequently around the world.

And most noticeably, it became very, very commercialized.

And now before you complain about having to spend a lot or being forced to spend a lot on Valentine's Day, know that you're not alone.

According to the stats in 2019, Americans spent over $20 billion on Valentine's Day gifts. This is roughly an average of approximately $200 per person.

And as he could probably imagine, men's spending on Valentine's Day tripled women spending.

And the stats in the UK is not that much different. In 2018, it was reported that 22 million Brits were preparing to spend money on their significant others on Valentine's Day.

And just when you think it's not a lot, note that the UK population is only around 66 million, so about 1/3 are spending money on their loved ones on Valentine's Day.

So that ends our little journey back in history in search of the un-romantic origin of Valentine's Day. Whether you are someone who really loves these ritualistic celebrations, or you're someone who keeps complaining about how commercialized everything is, leave us a comment, share with us how you spend your Valentine's Day.

Whether you're in a relationship or enjoying the carefree life of a single person, I wish you all the best. See you next time.