Pepero Day 11/11

A card I received on Pepero Day from my student Sunny!

  Because today is Pepero Day I received many gifts from my students! Pepero Day is a special day celebrated in Korea which is similar to Valentine's Day. Pepero is simply a chocolate covered cookie stick that is made by the huge corporation Lotte Confectionery.
    My students explained to me that this day is not as big of a celebration as Valentine's Day. But they enjoy giving small gifts and boxes of Pepero to their significant others. According to many of my Korean students, they think that Lotte has capitalized on Pepero day. There was always a spike in Pepero sales around the month of November, and specifically on Nov 11th. Wikipedia states that some young school girls started in 1994 in Busan and exchanged the treats to wish one another to grow tall and slender like the Pepero stick. Now as a result Lotte encourages the holiday and sells many Pepero Day inspired gifts starting weeks before November 11.

    Whether or not Lotte started Pepero Day as a way to make more profits is a mystery. But regardless of the origins of this day, Koreans love to celebrate romance. There are huge Pepero stuffed animals sold in almost every corner store weeks before Nov 11th, and bakeries make giant fresh made Pepero sticks to compete with Lotte. I feel so blessed to be a teacher on days like this, because I love the amazing cards and gifts that I receive from my students!




If you have any questions or comments about Pepero Day please leave them in the comment box below or email them to goneseoulsearching@gmail.com.

  Gone Seoul Searching by Marie Webb is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at goneseoulsearching@gmail.com.