Chapter Twenty-Five: Pepero Day

November 11th, in Korea, is a holiday that rivals any in America for commercialism. In fact, it's a holiday specifically started by candy companies. Seriously, it's not like all out American/Western holidays that were taken over by consumerism--it was created by people trying to profit from it. Gooooo, Pepero Day! (Above: my bounty)

On Pepero Day, you give pepero to your loved ones or anyone important in your life. Pepero is just like pocky, the Japanese candy. It is a crackery/pretzely stick dipped in chocolate. Occasionally, it's reversed with the chocolate on the inside. It is super-addictive. Sometimes there are nuts or sprinkles added to the outside. How could you go wrong with pepero? As you could see in the first picture, it is marketed like Valentine's Day. Often the packages have hearts and things like that on them. On the streets for the past week, I have seen many different types of chocolate sold in addition to pepero, but usually following the cookie+chocolate principle. This weekend, downtown was awash with little stands selling pepero day gift baskets which even had little teddy bears, ala Valentine's Day.

I recieved this super-special pepero from a kindergartener. Not only does it say "I Need You" on the wrapper...

It also has my name (a great attempt at spelling, I might add) in frosting on the huge pepero itself! Excellent! I got pepero from a few students as well as my bosses and Arthur.

Arthur gave me the special reverse pepero. "To: You, From: Me, Happy Pepero Day!" And that's how you would write pepero in hangul.

Want more explanation of Pepero Day? Let's turn to Tori's "essay" he wrote for me today (okay, the kid only had a few minutes, I didn't expect even this much).
People who make pepero day are sweet makers. Now, it's the most famous sweet holiday with valentine day and white day. If there are no pepero day I will die. In this day, people give eachocthe pepero.

He explained to me that on Valentine's Day girls give boys sweets but on White Day, boys give girls sweets (I think). There's also Black Day which involves some sort of Chinese noodle dish, but I'm not sure how relevant that was.

According to Wikipedia, the reason we celebrate Pepero Day on November 11th is that 11-11 symbolizes four sticks of pepero. More from wikipedia:
The holiday is observed mostly by young people and couples, who exchange Pepero sticks, other candies, and romantic gifts. Lotte denies starting the holiday and instead states that they noticed a bump in Pepero sales around November 11th and after continued popularity they decided to then encourage the holiday with special gift boxes and other promotions.^[2] Some consider it to be a contrived holiday and some teachers have encouraged children to exchange healthy snacks to help combat obesity.

According to one story, Pepero Day was started in 1994 by students at a girls' middle school in Busan, where they exchanged Pepero sticks as gifts to wish one another to grow "as tall and slender as a Pepero".^[6]

In Japan, a similar Pocky Day was started however it has failed to gain traction.

While pepero is officially made by Lotte (a company that pretty much owns Korean snack food and other commercial industries) there are lots of kinds of knock-off pepero, like the huge ones I got.

So there you have it. Another capitalistic holiday devoted to giving candy to loved ones. Nom nom nom.

Chapter Two: In Which We Celebrate Chu-seok

Chu-seok: Korean "Thanksgiving" is a harvest festival. Like American Thanksgiving, it's more about family than actually about the harvest (this is my understanding). There is a lot of ancestor worship involved in Chu-seok. People perform traditional songs and dances; but the best part is really the traditional sports and games. Yesterday, we did Ssirum (Korean wrestling) for PE, and just wait to see what sport we did for today's celebration. Today, the children spent the morning dressed in their traditional clothing and listened to the history of the holiday. Unfortunately, said history was in Korean so I have very minimal understanding what it is actually about. After the picture-fest, we made Songpyeon, which is often called a Korean rice-cake. Don't be fooled, rice-cake is nothing at all like the styrofoam circles we're used to. They're a very chewy dumping filled with peanuts or red bean paste (probably other things too). They were surprisingly tasty! Keep reading to find out the highlight of the day.

(above: Mars class, pre-pre-K, in their clothing. Ariel apparently doesn't realize that when you are wearing a skirt, you probably shouldn't climb on top of a table, who was I to judge?)

More Mars class

Pluto's Sally and Chris being hams

Pluto is one of the true kindergarten classes, generally a lot more demanding than Uranus but still really fun to teach and play with.

Mars again, being super cute. I look like I'm just hugging Woody, but really, I am keeping him from falling backwards and rolling on the floor. He's still one of the cutest kids ever.

I don't really teach Venus, a pre-K class, so I don't really know them.

Same goes for Jupiter.

And Mercury.

Uranus: Now, I'm not going to say I have a favorite class. Really. On that note... Uranus has an amazing mix of characters. Snuggly, prickly, silly, strange. They're fun even when they're frustrating. And I certainly do not have a ton of candid shots of them playing outside while all dressed up and being adorable. Nope, none of that to follow!

I love the way Anna and Ashley hold up their skirts from the dirt, but only when they aren't distracted by something interesting. And, as you know, at age six, everything is interesting.

Like watching me take pictures of them.

Anna came close enough for me to get a real picture of her.

This was the pose that their class did for pictures, I think it is about the harvest.

TOMMY! is surprisingly shy.

What is the Korean equivalent of being a ninja?

Ashley and Ariel, more Uranus.

Candid shots of Pluto and Uranus

POSE! Sam from Pluto

Jessie, Aussie Nicole, Eva, and Christine (our Kindergarten boss)

Doing a cute little Chu-seok song and dance

And in the afternoon:

Uranus' Ariel


And now it's time for the Chu-seok traditional(?) sport:

Arm Wrestling!

Tommy vs. Sally for the title of best kindergarten arm wrestler.
Look at Tommy's struggling face!

And the winners are:

Woody for Mars!

Allen for Pre-K

And Sally for kindergarten! That's right, she kicked the butt of many-a-boy!

Biting to check, yup, solid gold.

The end, for now!
Maybe I'll catch some grown-ups doing Chu-seok things this weekend.