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South Korea asks youth to spread love through rice |
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Thursday, 05 November 2009 |
Reuters: Seoul - Love is a sweet rice cake stick, or that is what South Korea's farm ministry would like the country's romantically minded to believe.
The ministry is trying to muscle into a popular local tradition where young people show their affection by exchanging chocolate stick candy on November 11, which was chosen because the "11/11" calendar note looks like four of the sticks.
The chocolate stick is called pepero and its special day was a stroke of marketing genius by a confectionary company that has turned November 11 into a monument of mass consumption for its product.
The government thinks candy may be nice, but the day is better celebrated with rice -- or the traditional rice cake stick called "garaetteok."
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