Hilary Meets the Land of the Morning Calm

What? Happy Pepero Day?

This is essentially Korean Valentine's day. 11/11 looks a lot like four pepero (pocky sticks), and so on this holiday children and young couples exchanges boxes of pepero. Teachers are also recepients of the below boxes. Some of my coworkers were so lavishly showered with pepero that they were trying to give it away. I receive a manageable amount of chocolate covered pretzels that I was sufficiently able to find a good place for ;)




Above is the original pepero box made by Lotte (an expansive Korean conglomerate that touches all areas of commercialism, including food production, shopping, and baseball teams.) According to Wikipedia, Lotte has been accused of making this a commercial holiday, a charge they deny. Their version of the story is that the holiday "just happened" to become popular when they started selling mass amounts of pepero in special gift boxes and promotions such as this:

Last night walking home I say these stands everywhere. Good thing I am a teacher, or I would have had no idea what was going on!