Yesterday, March 8th, was National Pancake Day. Many restaurants including Ihop offered free pancake for celebrating National Pancake Day. Pancake has been loved since it was first made in the ancient Greek. Especially, western world including America and Europe has loved pancake, so, the pancake means a lot for them compared to other societies. Because of the common ingredients and the simple cooking style of the pancake, most of the countries have their own style pancake. As a result, the pancake in many countries varies in shape, ingredients, and when people eat it.

As you know, Americans enjoy thin and round flat cake that contains flour, eggs, milk, and butter usually for their breakfast. Often, they add a variety of syrup like original, strawberry, or blueberry on top of the pancake and they add some special ingredients in batter too.

In Korea, interestingly, we have pancake called Jeon and Hotteok. Even though Koreans don’t think them as pancake, they are known as pancake to the world. Jeon is a comprehensive word for Korean style pancake which varies in its ingredients and its size. Koreans usually don’t have Jeon for breakfast. It’s for side menu, dinner, and snack served with alcoholic drinking. Koreans often say “feel like having Jeon” in rainy day.

Hotteok is smaller than Jeon and there are honey, sugar, seed, or special sauces in the middle of the Hotteok. Since Hotteok is small, it is popular street food. Since it is hot, it is popular in the winter.

At first, I was interested in the difference between American pancake and Korean pancake. However, after I had pancake at Ihop in National Pancake Day, I got interested in the relationship between culture and holidays.

When I first heard about National Pancake Day, I thought “What? Pancake Day?” Because there is no National Hotteok Day or Jeon Day in Korea, I had never expected a day like National Pancake Day. I went to Ihop and had free original pancake. I had to wait about 50 minutes because the place was really crowded. I could feel the popularity of pancake and how much Americans love pancake.

It is simple. There is National Pancake Day because Americans love pancake. In this way, I related holidays(including celebrating day) to culture. I could get a sense of American culture with the days.

Let me introduce one more example, Black Friday. We don’t have Black Friday in Korea. Last year, the Korean governments encouraged stores have Black Friday, but, it failed. Even though I leave America in May, I hope that I could still be here until Black Friday season. I found some reasons why America has Black Friday. First, America has a really big territory, so accessibility among states are bad. As a result, the shipping cost is really pricey, so, it’s more economical to sell goods with big sale instead of to sell goods to other regions with shipping fee. There is one more reason. Personnel expense; it is expensive. When products are not sold, people have to manage those products. It is more economical to sell goods with a big sale instead of to manage all the goods.

I related some holidays with culture, then I could understand America better than just reading books. Also, I could learn culture more interestingly.

It is a good way to look at holidays for understanding new culture in other countries. For you, I suggest to think your own holidays as new and look at them with new point of view.