While most Canadians were wearing their poppies and pausing for thought for Rememberance Day, Koreans everywhere were giving eachother chocolate-dipped cookie sticks that say I LOVE YOU. The 11th of November is known as Pepero Day, because “11/11” looks like four sticks.
According to a Korean newspaper, “Pepero Day supposedly started in 1994 at a girls’ middle school in Busan, where students exchanged Pepero sticks, wishing each other to become as tall and slender as a Pepero. But some suspect that Pepero Day was actually dreamed up by Lotte’s marketing team.”
But today, it is celebrated mostly by children and couples, like Valentine’s Day. So it was no surprise to get tons of these cookies from my students today. One boy in particular, from tkd, gave me a pepero stick in a balloon. It was so cute! Anyway, I agree that it is all about marketing because guess what? Only one company in Korea makes these sticks. And believe me everyone was either giving or receiving these treats. (The kicker is they don’t taste good!)