Valentine’s Day in Korea | From Korea With Love

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Valentine’s Day this year was a flurry of events! The morning started with Matt and I filming for DGFEZ. We did a tour of Seomun Market – the largest and oldest traditional Korean market in Daegu. It was a dream come true as I got to try on the traditional Korean hanbok – shoes, headgear and all!

Next, I met up with some chicas from the Love in Action ministry I’m involved in (in which I am doing some sex trafficking advocacy with), so we could share some love on Valentine’s Day and hand out chocolate to people. It was fun surprising people with chocolate and best of all, it was nice hearing them say “Thank you!” in English to me ^_^

Matt and I finished the night putting up posters for the new Daegu Theatre Troupe play that’s gonna happen next week. We went to the local bars that foreigners usually go to and went above and beyond our call of duty and enticed them to actually pose with the signs.And we found the cutest dog at one of the bars!! Here are some of the pics, along with our awesome new friend Brian and Haerin. We interrupted their VDay celebration but they welcomed us to eat cake and play darts ^^ :

As my favorite American holidays continue to come and go here in Korea, I have been made aware by mostly my students about the other popular modern holidays celebrated in Korea. Like I said, Hallmark wishes it was here:

11/11 Pepero day: Clever Korea to put this chocolate covered breadstick day on 11/11, since the written date resemble 4 pepero sticks. So kyopta. Of course who reaps the benefit of this holiday? Couples and students and Lotte (though the company denies creating the holiday).

: Pepero sticks

02/14 Valentine’s Day: Forget everything you ever knew about this holiday. Point blank, women get chocolate for the men they like.

03/03 Samgyopsal Day: March 3rd was chosen for this holiday because samgyeopsal, which means three-layered pork in Korean, begins with the word “sam” a reference to the number 3. As one of the cheapest meats in Korea, consumers buy this especially on March 3rd as prices are cut to its lowest.

03/14 White Day: It’s the men’s turn. They get chocolate for their sweetie. Or anything else white in color…like marshmellows.

04/14 Black Day: For those lonely ones who missed out on doing anything the rest of the time, this holiday is for you. All you single ladies, forget Beyonce’s song, go out and eat Jajangmyeon (자장면; 짜장면) consisings of wheat noodles topped with a thick sauce made of chunjang (a salty black soybean paste), diced meat and vegetables, and sometimes also seafood. Cause that’s what I want to gorge myself on to match the blackness in my “lonely heart”. Oh Korea when will you appreciate being single?