Jemma Robbins never thought an alarm clock would act as a Valentine’s Day Gift.Robbins also didn’t realize how widespread Valentine’s Day celebrations are in America.”Everything’s advertised for Valentine’s Day,” said Robbins, political science junior from London. “I saw an [alarm clock] radio advertised as a great Valentine’s Day gift, and I thought ‘No, it isn’t.'”For some of the University’s international students, this Saturday will be their first year to partake in America’s Valentine’s Day festivities.”This year is going to be   good because I’m single, and me and my other single friend are going to go on a day trip,” said Freya Hirst, history junior from York, England.Some students, like Rocio Peneda, international trade and finance freshman from Mexico, prefer their home countries’ Valentine’s Day celebrations.”Guys will hire a Mariachi band and go to a girl’s house and play a song for her,” Peneda said. “It means the boy likes you.”In Japan, women buy chocolate for men instead of the other way around, said Yoshinori Kamo, sociology professor.Japanese Valentine’s Day is based on chocolate and has little to do with love and sex, he said.”In this country, you see funny looking underwear and something relating to sex,” Kamo said. “In Japan, it’s obligation chocolate.”Chocolate companies trying to sell more of their product proposed women buy men chocolate.”In Japan, it’s relatively male chauvinistic,” Kamo said. “There’s no gender equality. So this was a way for women to speak up.”In France, the holiday is reserved for the romantically involved, said Farida Ngandu-Tshiebue, French junior.”My friend who’s a girl sent me a valentine, and I was surprised,” she said. “In France, we don’t do that unless we love somebody.”However, most celebrants don’t know the origin of the holiday.”Wasn’t St. Valentine Italian?” Robbins asked.While Valentine was Italian, the holiday is named after one of two men named Valentine. One was a bishop, and the other was a priest.However, Valentine’s martyr date, which falls on Feb. 14, had nothing to do with love or fertility until the 1300s.”Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century wrote a poem called “The Parliament of Fowles said Maribel Dietz, history professor. “In the poem, he talks about birds that gather and make love and find their mates on a particular day. And that day is on St. Valentine’s Day.”The Roman Emperor Claudius arrested Valentine, a Christian priest, in the third century. He was beheaded and made a martyr.Yet, St. Valentine’s holiday “got demoted into a lesser status in terms of religions commemorations at Vatican II Council,” Dietz said.Dietz said Valentine was not an important martyr even during his time period.”Chaucer chose him and promoted him in this way,” she said.Valentine’s Day has no cultural basis in Japan, Kamo said.”No one in Japan even knows who St. Valentine is because they’re not even Christian,” he said.Robbins thinks of Valentine’s Day as way to appreciate friends and loved ones, similar to Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.”You can show those few people around you who you’re closest to how much you care about them,” she said.However, some singles think the day is ironic.”It’s funny how single people feel good about themselves on a daily basis, then on Valentine’s day they feel really bad for one day, then feel better the next,” Hirst said.—-Contact Victoria Yu at [email protected]^