South Korea’s unique custom of couples and friends exchanging pairs of stick-shaped snacks on Nov. 11 has arrived in Pyongyang. Aware of this, the Pyongyang branch of the Socialist Patriotic Youth League issued an order ahead of so-called Pepero Day—as the Nov. 11 “holiday” is called in South Korea—urging young people to be on guard and highlighting the need to prevent “capitalist ideological infiltrations.”
According to a Daily NK source in Pyongyang, the Pyongyang branch of the Socialist Patriotic Youth League issued an order to schools calling for people to be “thoroughly on guard against decadent capitalist ideas like Pepero Day permeating among young people.”
Many students gave each other stick-shaped cookies and sweets on Nov. 11 of last year, and with even more students preparing snacks and other gifts for this year’s Pepero Day, the Socialist Patriotic Youth League immediately stepped in to stop it.
“The Socialist Patriotic Youth League stepped in when they found that children from wealthy Pyongyang families were wrapping imported snacks they purchased at foreign exchange shops or imported foodstuff stores, snapping photos of them with their phones and even joking that now they date like South Koreans, too,” the source said.
‘Ideological stronghold’ threatened by stick-shaped cookies
The order the city branch of the Socialist Patriotic Youth League sent to the league’s school organizations and Korean Children’s Union branches said that the practice “was an ideological problem that harmed socialist ethics and spirit,” warning that “if we let Pyongyang’s future generations become imbued with decadent capitalist customs, it could lead to the collapse of our ideological stronghold.”
“Nov. 11 is not a unit number of the Korean People’s Army, and it has nothing to do with revolutionary history,” the order said. “Deal strictly with the exchanging of cookies and sweets on Nov. 11, treating it as a ‘non-socialist’ act.”
The Socialist Patriotic Youth League ordered its school branches and Korean Children’s Union organizations to form “ideological inspection teams” to inspect student bags. Students who are caught during inspections, their parents and even the Socialist Patriotic Youth League guidance officer at their school will all be held accountable for violations, the league warned.
Schools held emergency struggle sessions after the order was issued, but students instead shared plans to enjoy Pepero Day in secret, counseling one another to “simply secretly exchange gifts between ourselves” or to “avoid bringing gifts to school.”
In this atmosphere, guidance officers from the Socialist Patriotic Youth League and the Korean Children’s Union, as well as homeroom teachers, openly expressed concern.
“Guidance officers of the Socialist Patriotic Youth League and the Korean Children’s Union say that kids nowadays insist they are simply exchanging snacks with friends, not following South Korean culture, and that they are at a loss as to how to stop it,” the source said.
“With the authorities making such a fuss with their order and the schools convening struggle sessions, some students who had not even heard the term ‘Pepero Day’ now know what it is and have taken an interest in it,” the source said.
