Nov 11 in Korea is not rememberance day, its Pepero Day. Pepero is a pencil like thin biscuit coated in chocolate. There are four types, plain chocolate, chocolate almond, chocolate nuts, and a chocolate filled tube. All the kids are highly excited for pepero day and there are special packages on sale in the stores.

Last year I bought two giant cartons of pepero for about $20 each. I still have the empty boxes so this year I put them on display with a new carton I got giving them the impression there are many cartons of pepero. I know its cruel!

Every class that comes in during the week goes crazy at the pepero boxes and keep saying to give them the pepero, so I have to tell them pepero day is friday and to wait, and only if they are good. Last friday I showed the boxes to the bad classes and told them they would get it this friday if they are good both fridays, and they were perfect angels. It works as a coercive measure but only has a limited lasting power until pepero day.

Last year at homeplus the nite before you could hardly move in the aisle of pepero boxes. It was filled with students from my school filling their baskets with as many as their allowance could afford. This year I went back with my camera and it was no different. I saw students buying boxes and I told them to give me one, which they refused.

On friday I had five classes so gave students bingo numbers and randomly chose five numbers to award students with pepero boxes. Because not all students have class fridays and had seen the boxes all week, I told them to come to the class window at 1pm during lunchtime.

I told them to come outside as I kept getting mobbed at my desk by students demanding pepero and pushing past me to grab the boxes. I thought keeping them outside by the window would be a bit more orderly and fun as I threw a few boxes out.

It got out of control again. There was hysteria as people were pushing and shoving to grab the boxes. One boy jumped into the classroom so I had to tell him to get out. Then they were getting mad as they didnt get boxes so they were throwing garbage back into the window at me. I had to stop as kids were throwing water on the crowd from an upstairs window.

All this commotion quite shocked the teachers as they'd never seen this before. Pepero is banned in the school to avoid lots of garbage and wrappers. Three teachers rushed over to the class to see if I was ok when students started throwing garbage in at me. It was all a bit of well intentioned fun that got a bit out of hand.

Thursday was high school national exams for the third graders (grade 12) writing entrance exams to goto university. High school students get the day off except for the ones writing the exam. In middle school we got to come in late at 9.40 with classes starting at 10am instead of 9am.

I also heard that trains and planes will not be running during the exam hours to give the students extra quiet to write their exams. It all sounds a bit bizzare and I dont remember any of this happenning last year before pepero day.

I'm also spending the next two weeks doing speaking exams again giving one minute interviews to each of the students.