Commemoration and Cookies

November 11. This is a day when all Canadian history students stress out just a little bit. Remembrance Day. The one day that is completely devoted to the memory of those who died for a more noble cause.

I don’t do war. I don’t believe that in today’s world, blowing up our adversaries is a solution. Nothing could ever make me consider modern warfare to be a valiant, virtuous or gallant cause. I do however believe that there was a time when war when noble; a time when trained soldiers fought trained soldiers in hand to hand combat on a designated field of battle. When the military genius of great generals decided the outcome of wars that saw entire peoples and empires fall. From the ashes of this destruction rose new cultures whose influence on art, culture and language continues today.

At that time people did not hop in a plane and blow up entire towns and cities with bombs, or mow the enemy down with machine guns. It was a test of strength, determination and training.

Maybe I’m a hypocrite, but I see a difference in the purpose, and outcome, of warfare then and now.

Whether we are in agreement or not, the fact remains that people died defending their countries; died for a cause they believed to be greater than themselves. They perished because a series of events led them to be in a particular place at a monumental point in history. They died for, or perhaps because of, their religion, race or ethnicity. It is these people that I remember on November 11 of each year.

As students of history, we fear that this concept is drowning in the sands of time. We strive to uphold the memory and the spirit of all of those who came before, who lost their lives in armed conflict of every kind.

They don’t celebrate Remembrance Day in Korea. Obviously this didn’t surprise me at all seeing as it is, after all, a Canadian commemorative event. What did surprise me is that on this day, November 11, Koreans have a national observance all their own: Pepero Day.

Pepero Day in no way resembles Remembrance Day. The only thing I could compare it to is Valentine’s Day (which, in Korea, they have four versions of, if you include Pepero Day). On this day, couples give each other Pepero – long thin wafer-type cookies that are dipped in chocolate. Children also give them to their teachers, which means that as all of the Canadians at my school observed our moment of silence, the soft “crunch crunch” of Pepero being eaten was audible throughout the staff room.

So we honoured two events this year. We took our moment of silence, watched war movies and talked about our trips to France and the battlefields of the Second World War. All while snacking on Pepero given to us by our adoring, sugar-laden students.