Pepero Day

November 11th is Remembrance Day in Canada, so when I heard that it was Pepero Day in Korea I was wondering if they were similar.

No.

I was very wrong. Remembrance Day is a day to reflect on the tragedies of war. Pepero Day is all about giving Pepero to people who matter to you. Pepero is like a Korean version of Pocky, a bread stick dipped in something sweet. So It's really more like Valentine's Day.

Pepero Day started out of basically nothing. Rumor has it that two girls exchanged Pepero with a wish that they would grow tall and thin (like the stick). It has significance with the shape of the number one, tall and thin. Thus to be tall and thin, one must eat 11 Pepero at 11:11am and 11:11pm (at exactly 11 seconds) on November 11th.


I was given about five boxes of Pepero, several single sticks, and a box of chocolate covered almonds from a kind co-teacher.

Since they're kind of like Valentines there's a space on the box to write a little message, like so:

goma woyo.

It's a cute idea. My only warning about it is that nearly all Pepero are sold by Lotte. Lotte already feels like it may own a big piece of Korea.Their fastfood chain, Lotteria, is more common than McDonald in my experience, Lotte had cinemas and super markets -even a whole theme park- and not to forget the tallest tower in Korea. Fifty percent of all Pepero sales happen on one day. It's not a hallmark holiday it's a LOTTE different!