Pepero Day

For years I have heard phrases like "consumer" and "greeting card" holidays but these have only really ever been used to describe days such as Valentines day and in some cases the modern versions of Easter and Christmas, but S.Korea has actually taken these words to a whole new meaning all together.

Inspired by valentines day, the company Pepero (a brand of chocolate biscuits/bread-sticks much like the more widely spread Japanese "Pocky") decided to celebrate itself on 11/11 purely because the four digits resemble four of the chocolate coated sticks that they market. They claim that the holiday was actually started by a group of middle school girls who on 11/11 gave each other Pepero and repeated to each other "may you grow to be tall and thin like a Pepero," which is fairly ironic as I doubt a bread stick coated in chocolate could ever aid in the growing or dieting process.

As the day has progressed and grown it has become a big tradition here in Korea to buy Pepero in abundance and basically hand it out to anyone you feel like really. Boyfriends are expected to shower their girlfriends in large boxes of the treats or overly sized versions. Children buy D-I-Y kits and decorate their own at home, some just buy backpacks full of it, even bakeries sell their own freshly-baked versions.

As a teacher; I spent my Pepero day being greeted at the beginning of every class with a new box of the stuff and as much as I appreciated the gesture it did make me laugh. I have always laughed at the concept of Easter; buying a disgusting amount of chocolate eggs to hand out to friends only to receive the exact same number of eggs in return as it would only be rude to accept and not to give. The joke was always when the gift giving and receiving was over, you realize that you technically bought yourself a room full of chocolate that isn't really all that good and you probably preferred the brands you gave away anyway.

My collection by the end of the day.

After a few giggles; I began to think to myself just how genius this idea really was. A single company has basically managed to create a national holiday that all children adore and take part in every year. I would love to know how much Pepero sales actually boost by in November. The only figure I was able to actually find was on wiki which says;

"Lotte usually does about 55% of their Pepero business in November every year."

I wonder if such an concept would be possible in other countries; Many people in the UK and USA already turn their noses up at valentines day claiming that it was created by greeting card companies. I just wonder what would happen if Cadburys or Heinz ever decided to devote a day to celebrating themselves, do you think it could actually hold any success on the other side of the world?

Blog grooming. Injoy it.

Writing something like a blog or a diary is hard. Not necessarily the act of writing it or finding the words, more that it needs to be maintained; like a pet or a garden. If it goes unkempt or forgotten, even for a short while… its death is pretty imminent.

I recently re-discovered this old blog, to find that it was so out of date, I wouldn’t even know where to begin on the next entry; almost made me want to scrap it and start all over again but that just felt like a waste of words. So how do you begin a story that actually takes place over seven months without boring the life out of the reader or yourself?

I was nearing an entire year of nothing other than a couple of unsteady shifts, frustrations, arguments and boredom that was only held together by video games, a couple of faithful friends and the hope that things would soon improve. I had finally had enough, the fear that this cycle would continue on for another year was far too great to just sit back and watch it happen. So long story short, I signed a contract, packed my bags and left the country; trying my hardest not to look back. The flight took me back to a country I hadn’t visited since the day I left in 1995 (I think that’s when I left at least), Australia. Those few weeks were great and almost tempted me to never leave.

I have been thinking for days, trying to find the right way to word my time in Australia. The problem is Australia was nice, the people were nice, the weather was nice, my family and friends were nice, the food was nice; hardly going to make the most exciting read really. I had a great time out there, I wasn’t a tourist, I didn’t do tourist things, I was at home meeting family and seeing a different life that kind of motivated me to work towards a goal that I didn’t even know I wanted until then. So I guess I’ll leave it at that; Australia was nice for a lack of a better word or thesaurus.

Onto another plane and over to Taipei, which had very little to offer me other than a night of being delusional in a motel room and waking up sitting in a bath with a cup of green tea and a diary entry next to me at about 4am very confused. Nothing to tempt me to stay any longer, next plane, next stop South Korea.

I arrived only to be stopped by sniffer dogs; I laughed, thinking it was because I had been carrying brie in my bag, after a quick explanation the security guard laughed and let me go… in hindsight; I realise I was using my brothers old backpack which might have been the cause of attention. I was re-united with Andy, hopped on a bus to Jeonju and, well, everything between then and now is a bunch of short stories; anecdotes and a lot of boring work related moments.

So long story short, here I am, teaching English in the city of Jeonju of South Korea. I live in a small apartment with my boyfriend Andy; I go to work and teach children English (to the ones who listen at least) and live a slightly more exciting life than the one I was living when I had all the time in the world to maintain a blog.

Images: © Leora Bermeister