Yesterday I was pleased to be gifted a small green box of sweets by one of my students, Tom. This snack, labeled in both Korean and English as "pepero," consisted of a chocolate and almond mixture covering a long thin cookie-like stick. While I do not normally receive gifts from my students I did not think that much about my small present as it was a food offering; something that Nate somehow seems to come by many times a week, though, the majority of his offerings come from Michelle who has recognized that her students "take all [Nate's] energy." I simply thanked Tom and proceeded to share the box of pepero's with the whole class as there were enough to go around!Well, this morning over lunch/breakfast/whatever-you-call-it-when-you-eat-your-first-meal-of-the-day-at-two-o'clock, Nate mentioned that he needed to stop by Home Mart to pick up some pepero for his teachers. Wait a minute, I've heard of that before, that's what Tom gave me yesterday! Why do you have to pick that up?! Well because Michelle told him he needed to of course, though I'm not entirely sure how that was conveyed as Michelle's English pales (is that really the right word?) in comparison to any of my students from Wednesday afternoon onwards. Nate explained that apparently today, November 11th, was pepero day and that we should get the teachers, you guessed it, pepero!
Not one to buy into a random holiday that I've never heard of and requires me to buy sweets for those other than myself. . .wait, who am I kidding, I dig Halloween, but didn't we just do that last week?! Okay, I decided to tag along to Home Mart and check out the pepero selection. Into the large. . .I dunno. . .building. . .nothing is distinguishable from anything else here. . . and down the escalator we stepped into Home Mart where we were immediately greeted by a large display of pepero in every shape and size imaginable. Apparently other people knew about this holiday.
We mulled over the selection for a bit and eventually decided that the large cute boxes would be good to give to Ana, as she is essentially our boss, and Moon Young, because, well, she's essentially cute. So we snagged up two of those, from both of us of course, and Nate grabbed another large variety pack to share between his other teachers. . . I figured one would do as Moon Young is the only Korean teacher I worked with today!
On the way back to Dootavill we tried to dump our spare change in the Tekken machine (which I'll have to post a picture of us playing as we literally tower over this gaming console and have not stopped drawing laughs but refuse to stop playing) only to find the game's owner out of her office and hence unable to turn on the machines for us. We stood around dejected for a moment before realizing that the adjacent shop seemed to have suddenly sprung to life!
For the past two weeks or so workers have been in and out of the place every day, doing everything from gutting the former business to welding a new facade for the future occupants. As we have watched it come together, from out little bench in front of the Tekken machine, we were excited to finally see people hanging around what looks to be a new coffee shop. We asked the woman out front if they were open and she informed us that they would be as of Friday! A big surprise seeing as how on Monday they were still putting together the facade, hammering down the patio and the inside walls were bare! Anyways, it'll be nice to have a new business on our Eunang Sa Kori (Four Bank Corner) as we have become regulars, and begun to grow bored with, every other business around! We congratulated the, what appeared to be, new owners and assured them that we'd stop by on Friday. . .who knows if our message was conveyed!
Back in my Dootavill abode I hopped on the all knowing world wide web to try and uncover what exactly this pepero phenomenon was! With a quick search using The Google I was directed to the anti-academia itself, Wikipedia. According to this uncitable source, pepero is in fact a " a cookie stick, dipped in chocolate syrup, manufactured by Lotte in South Korea since 1983, and is similar to the Japanese chocolate-covered snack food, Pocky, which was first sold in 1966." Wait. . .Lotte. . . invented the pepero. . .the same Lotte as in Lotte Mart, Lotte Department Store, Lotte Productions, Lotteria, and Lotte-adopt-a-baby!? Okay, the last one was made up. . .but seriously, Lotte now invents holidays? Is there anything It can't do!?
Apparently the holiday is akin to a Valentines or Sweetest Day where you give the women in your life a good excuse to eat a whole lot of crap that they'd otherwise be too embarrassed to eat in front of you. Bring on the pepero! I decided that my choice to just stick with a gift for Moon Young and not all the teachers was for the better as any holiday that originated with middle-school students can not be thought of that highly by middle-school teachers. . . I think we were right!
Ana was surprised and somewhat embarrassed that we brought her a gift while she had nothing to give us in return. Never mind the fact that she gave us scratch off lottery tickets last week for no reason that both Nate and I won another free lottery ticket off of (yet to be claimed, keep your fingers crossed). Moon Young was equally as taken aback by us bringing her something though a bit more pleasantly surprised. Throughout the day she collected a rather decent amount of student borne pepero and kindly shared the majority of her lot with the students in turn!
I was lucky enough to walk away with three boxes of pepero. . .well, two actually, I consumed one while grading essays for two hours (a topic that I will not go in to now but need to discuss at length in the future). The two I decided to keep until getting home were given to me by Alice (she-who-no-speekum-but-make-cute-smiles-so-teacher-don't-get-angry) and Donna (she-who-talk-louder-than-teacher-which-considering-the-teacher-is-quite-a-commendable-feat).
Though they both indicated that they had pepero from me, I was told to wait as Donna grabbed a marker from Moon Young, shrieked and bolted out of the class before I could tell them thank you. Alice and Donna, along with the other girls in my Tuesday 8:30 class (my second favorite class by far and one of only two [out of a total 13] that I can truly say I 'enjoy'), came racing back into the classroom only moments later shoving two little boxes of pepero in my face. I graciously accepted, thanked them and told them to sit down before I started whopping 'em upside down!
Perhaps one of the reasons why I enjoy this class so much is that I this is the only class in which I can wield Moon Young's 'teaching stick' and be taken seriously! No, seriously, well, kind of. . .I carry it around because at first this class was too loud and out of control so it scared them but now it's just kind of funny and I can still use it to threaten. . .which it does very, very well!
Sooo anyways, it wasn't until after class that I took a look at the boxes and realized that they had taken the time to write brief little notes on them! Awww how cute! Though it took me a second to realize that the blank line on the green one was in fact an arrow that reached around back to a big beautiful "I Love You," signed by Jong Lin. . .better known as Donna! Well that's cute I thought. . .and perhaps the reason why she was shrieking and screaming throughout class anytime one of her friends opened their mouths to say something. . . a (not so) secret admirer. . .I feel so popular!
Anyways, I still must fill you in on our haphazard and unproductive adventures from this weekend but I thought first I should wish everyone a happy pepero day! To be honest, it doesn't have much going for it in terms of substance. . .but when you take a bite of that almond and chocolate pepero. . . mmmm you'll know why they celebrate it!
Happy Pepero Day!
11/11/08
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