ポッキーの日は世界に広まらない

英文フリーペーパーのMetropolisは隔週から月刊に変わっていたのですね。日本の情報を英語で読める貴重なメディアのひとつなのでペースは落としても続けて欲しいです。

1週間遅れの話題ですが11月11日はポッキーの日だったそうですが、韓国との因縁があったことをこの記事で初めて知りました。

food culture
PICK POCKY
The history of Pocky Day and its rivalry with the Korean rip-off
BY TREVOR CAMPBELL | POSTED ON NOVEMBER 11, 2016

But what happened next made Glico livid. The story goes that two Korean schoolgirls decided to make a wish on November 11, 1994. In the hopes of becoming tall and slender like a pair of number ones–or their favorite Korean snack food–they ate a handful of Pepero in a bid to invoke cosmic intervention.

We know what you’re thinking: it seems unlikely that committing to eating a box of chocolate-covered cookies would be the fastest route to a slim silhouette. Whether the story was concocted by a boardroom full of marketing execs or actually originated with a sugar-centric diet pact, it caught on. Pepero Day officially launched in 1997 and in recent years has accounted for a staggering 50% of Lotte’s annual profits.

Meanwhile, back in Japan, Glico watched in disbelief as a Pocky knock-off eclipsed its estranged foreign ancestor by an unimaginable sales margin. It may have been tempting to point a Pocky-shaped missile at the Lotte factory and do something drastic, but they resorted to a much more classical form of revenge: an eye for an eye. Lotte had stolen from them, so they would do it back.

Two years after Pepero Day took the Korean calendar by storm, Glico made an identical announcement in Japan: as of 1999 (or year 11, according to the Japanese calendar), November 11 would be henceforth known as Pocky Day.

韓国に詳しい人にとってはよく知られたことかもしれません。

ペペロデー(ポッキーの日)
11月11日は「ペペロデー」！ペペロというお菓子を、親しい人に贈る一大イベントです。毎年この日が近づくとスーパーやコンビニはもちろん、服屋や文房具店でもイベントが行なわれ、街はペペロ一色になります。記念日が多い韓国で、バレンタインデーやホワイトデーに並ぶビッグイベントの１つと言われる「ペペロデー」。その由来や街の熱気をご紹介しましょう。

ただ11月11日は第一次世界大戦の休戦記念日ですから世界的に広まる可能性は低そうです。Euronewsがこの日についてわかりやすく解説してくれています。

（オックスフォード）
Armistice Day
11 November, the anniversary of the end of World War I, also called Poppy Day. People used to stop what they were doing at 11 a.m. on Armistice Day and stand in silence for two minutes to remember the dead. After World War II it was replaced by Remembrance Sunday in Britain and Veterans' Day in America.



最後の方の女性の歴史家が今の世界のあり方の方向性を決めたとその影響力の大きさ語っています。

“It was a hundred years ago, World War One, but it is still shaping the world in which we live. Without that war, we might not have had the disappearance of Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empires. I think we most certainly wouldn’t have had the Bolsheviks seizing power in Russia in 1917. And when you think of what flowed from that – it shaped the whole of the 20th century. And the First World War also created the circumstances within the Second World War became possible,” opined Professor Margaret MacMillan, Oxford University historian.

欧米メディアはこの時期は戦争についての話題が増えていますし、英国人の政治家やキャスターは11月初旬あたりからポピーの花を上着につけ出しますよね。日本にとっては第一次世界大戦の痛手が少なかったのでポッキーを祝えているかもしれません。