How Pepero Day Began: The Busan Schoolgirls Who Started It

Every November 11, South Korea runs on chocolate sticks. Convenience stores stack Pepero boxes to the ceiling, couples swap decorated gift sets, and coworkers find slim red boxes waiting on their desks. It all feels so established that it's easy to assume Pepero Day is ancient. It isn't. The whole thing started about thirty years ago, with schoolgirls in Busan and a wish about growing tall.

A port city and a schoolyard idea

Busan is South Korea's big southern port city, and in the mid-1990s something small started happening in its schools. Girls began giving each other Pepero — the thin chocolate-coated biscuit sticks made by Lotte Wellfood — on one specific day of the year. The gift came with a wish: may you grow tall and slim, just like the stick itself.

It was a sweet, funny idea, and it cost almost nothing. A box of Pepero was cheap enough for a student's pocket money, and the wish made it personal. This wasn't a company campaign or a government holiday. It was kids inventing a ritual, the way kids do, and telling their friends at other schools.

Why the date stuck

The chosen day was November 11, and the date did half the marketing work on its own. Written as 11/11, it looks like four Pepero sticks standing in a row. A tradition tied to a date that pictures the product itself is a tradition nobody forgets. You don't need a reminder when the calendar does the reminding. Our homepage explains what Pepero Day is and why November 11 matters in full, including the quick facts most people look up.

From Busan the custom spread the way school trends always spread — older sisters, cousins, friends who moved, students who saw it and copied it. Within a few years it had jumped from one city's schoolyards to schools across the country.

From school tradition to national day

Once the custom was everywhere, business followed. Lotte leaned into the day its customers had created, producing special Pepero Day editions and gift packaging. Shops built displays. Bakeries and florists started bundling Pepero with ribbons and plush toys. Media coverage did the rest, naming November 11 as Pepero Day and reporting on it every autumn like weather.

The day outgrew school, too. Couples adopted it as a lighter, cheaper cousin of Valentine's Day. Offices adopted it because a small box is an easy, safe gift between coworkers. Teachers get them. Parents get them. The wish about growing tall and slim mostly faded into a joke people still smile about, but the giving never stopped.

Small details people still argue about

Ask Koreans about the origin and you'll hear slightly different versions. Some say the year was 1993, others 1994 or a bit later. Some tell it as one middle school, others as a few schools at once. A folk custom doesn't get a press release, so the edges of the story stay fuzzy — and honestly, that fuzziness is part of the proof. Traditions invented in marketing meetings come with exact launch dates. Traditions invented by teenagers come with arguments. There's also the 11:11 detail: some fans mark the exact minute on the day, taking photos and sending messages when the clock matches the date. Whether that twist is old or new, it fits the same pattern — people keep adding their own small layer to a day that belongs to them.

What the story tells you

The interesting part of the Busan story is who started it. Not Lotte's marketing team — students. Pepero Day is a bottom-up holiday, invented by its own celebrators and only later dressed up by companies. That's rare, and it may explain why the day still feels warm rather than forced. The ritual was never "buy this because we said so." It was "give this to someone you like, and wish them well."

Japan tells a similar story with a different snack, and the comparison is half the fun — read Pepero Day vs Pocky Day for how the two November 11 traditions grew up side by side. And if you're planning to join in this year, our guide to the best Pepero flavours and gift boxes will help you pick the right box. The next Pepero Day is November 11, 2027 — plenty of time to live up to the Busan original.