Pepero Day happens to be my favorite corporation contrived confection based holiday. It’s on November 11th, which is also Armistice Day, but hey, we don’t celebrate the end of World War I with little sticks dipped in chocoloate, so forget about that. It’s all about Pepero day in school when they day approaches. Friendships are won and lost based on the amount of candy a parent is willing to buy for their children.

With the holiday falling on a weekend this year, my students might be tempted to either forget to give me Pepero, which isn’t wise. I’m quite the fan of Pepero, and Pepero Day means free candy, so I’m all for it. Students might also act as if I wouldn’t know about Pepero Day being a foreigner and wait until Monday to re-gift some of their less desirable knock off brand sticks to me in an attempt to win favor while getting rid of bad candy at the same time. I am not fooled by imitations, and I demand the real thing. Lotte brand Almond Pepero is what I tell my students to bring me if they are going to bring me anything at all. Too many sticks of the bad stuff causes stomachaches.

As a sort of fun exercise at the end of the class, I did a quick lesson about Pepero Day. I asked them when it was, what they did, and what their favorite kind of Pepero was. I got a variety of responses. Some real, some funny. Most students liked the traditional flavors:

  • Plain Pepero - A crunchy stick dipped in chocolate
  • Nude Pepero- A crunchy stick outside, chocolate inside
  • Almond Pepero- Plain Pepero with Almonds
  • White Pepero- White Chocolate Pepero
  • Dark Pepero- Dark Chocolate Pepero
  • Long Pepero- Pepero of various lengths, from the size of a pencil to a golf club dipped in chocolate

Some of my sillier students came up with some alternate flavors of snacks such as:

  • Fish Pepero- Fish dipped in chocolate
  • Chicken Pepero- A chicken leg dipped in chocolate
  • Hot Pepero- A red pepper flavored stick of Pepero

The worst fake flavor was "Dung Pepero". The student that said it was simply being funny, but I immediately stopped class to find out more about this "Flavor". The girl (!) pantomimed the act of deficaition, then pretended to stick her finger in the imaginary poop. She then held up her finger and said, "Dung Pepero!" This finger dipped in imaginary "chocolate" was one of the funniest and most disgusting things I’ve ever seen a student do. I was laughing and was too grossed out to follow up with any questions after that.