11/11:Rememberance and Peppero Day

The Rememberance and Peppero Day

It's only 10:00 a.m., am in my office and taught only one class at the middle school - and my big desk is covered in Peppero Sticks. My cute monster girls gave me dozens of these breadsticks dipped in chocolate, straweberry or vanilla coating. The shiny pink, red, golden, yellow wrappings are covered in cutsie cartoon bears, rabbits, chicks, and some of the messages read: lovely, sweet love, sweetie, so sweet, happy day,sweet 100%, , sweet cookie house, good taste, and a whole message on one of them (this should be a deluxe peppero stick in shiny pink wrapping with even shinier hearts of all sized on it: "you are my friend, you provide me with love."
What the heck is a Peppero Day? A day to show those you love that you love them? A day to overindulge in carbs of the worst kind? A day to dread of not getting any from your students which would be the ultimate proof of how unpopular you are? All of these, perhaps, but mostly it is a tribute to someone's marketing genius. You can use 4 breadsticks stood upright to "write "November 11th, 11.11. . How extraordinary and a reason enough to have a brand new holiday. On this day in Korea, you see kids and adults walking around carrying pepperos in all lengths, widths, colours and wrappings. Bakeries and other stores display them at the most visible spot. It has something of the Valentine's Day quality back home.
Let's not forget that it's also the Rememberance Day (pun really not intended!) back home in Canada. We honour Canadians who served in WW I and II, in the Korean war and those involved in subsequent world conflicts. More than 1,500,000 Canadians served and more than 100,000 died. On this day Canadians (as well as war veterans in many other English speaking countries) wear poppy flowers attached to their lapels. I got two of them from the Brittish Embassy last Thursday.

Why poppies? In his famous poem "In Flanders Fields", dedicated to the dead soldiers of the WW I, John McCree used the poppy for its colour (red as blood) and for its ancient association with the eternal sleep and rest. Thanatos and Hypnos, the ancient twin gods of death (Thanatos) and slumber (Hypnos or Somnus) were frequently depicted carrying poppies or resting among poppies. Somnus would ocassionally grant Demeter/Ceres, - the goddess of Earth who lost her daugther Persephone to the lecherous god of the underworld Hades, - some rest from her anguish with the help of poppies' opiatic properties. The original myth of Persephone have Hades giving her a poppy from the Underworld to sniff so that she became forever bound to him and his world (later, the poppy in the myth was replaced by a pommegranite (?!) - ah, those ancients, can't they get their facts straight?).
My own family has been scarred by many wars. My great-grandfather fought in the WWI, got sick on the front and died shortly after coming back home, a broken man. His wife followed soon after which left my grandma an orphan at the age of 5 or 7, in the care or rather heartless aunt and uncle. My mom's brother who fought in WW II disappeared on the Russian front (fighting on th side of Austro-Hungarian Empire, as Croatia was part of it). We never found out what happened to hom, where and how he died and where and if he was burried. His brother was wounded and left in fragile condition for the rest of his life. My paternal grandfather Stipe was killed in the war in 1942 lleaving behind three orphaned children, two unmarried teenage sisters and a pair of sickly and elderly parents. My dad was only 3 years old at the time. The last war in former Yugoslavia was another devastating experience: my family in a refuge camp, brothers on the front, one of them imprisoned for about 9 months, my cousin killed, property lost, family dispersed.... I can't and won't forget. It's ironic that such a solemn memorial in the West would be such a frivolous little holiday in Korea.

And here, for your reading pleasure and lest you forget, the beatiful and sad "In Flanders Fields" poem:"

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard 'mid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow
Loved and were loved,
and now we lie in Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep
Though poppies grow
In Flanders fields