Pepero Day

November 11th is Remembrance Day or Veterans Day to North Americans, but here in South Korea November 11th is a special day for an entirely different reason: it's Pepero Day!

According to the JoongAng Daily:

The Pepero snack is a replica of Pocky, the Japanese treat of chocolate-dipped cookie sticks. The 11th of November is known as Pepero Day, because "11/11" looks like four sticks. 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.

(Lotte is the 8th largest "chaebol" (conglomerate corporation) in South Korea. It employs more than 38,000 people and is into everything from candy to hotels to fast food. )

The typical box of Pepero sells for 500 to 700 won, but these days one need not be limited to the original Pepero. (In my opinion the most inferior Pepero!) In the weeks preceding November 11th the downtown stores attempt to attract customers with their elaborate displays of chocolate-dipped pretzel sticks. Mountains of Pepero boxes appear both inside and outside stores. I even saw a 5 foot tall Pepero, though I don't think it was edible!

In the above picture the standard Pepero is on the left, almond Pepero is in the centre and nude Pepero is on the right.

Perhaps it was just a marketing ploy, but I definitely think each country should have at least one candy-based holiday! After all, we not only have candy canes at Christmas, chocolate on Valentine's Day and cream-filled eggs at Easter, but let's not forget the grand-daddy of all candy holidays: Halloween! Then again, who needs a special day to eat candy?