It’s February! Can you believe that January has already passed? It seems like yesterday that 2021 started. February is one of the months that have one of the most important events in the year.
Think of the February calendars. Don’t they have red hearts and cupids? You guessed it.
Valentine’s Day.
Valentine’s Day is a day that lots of people buy chocolate. People buy boxes of chocolate to give to the person they like. Do you know when they started to give chocolate boxes? It was started in the 19th century by Richard Cadbury, a member of a chocolate making family. They had found a new way to make chocolate faster and better, so he jumped right into the opportunity to sell much more chocolate. In Italy Verona, thousands of people send letters to ‘Juliet’. Italy, Verona is the place where the Shakespeare tragedy takes place. Every. On Valentine's day, the Juliet club gives the ‘Dear Juliet’ prize to the author of the most touching love letter.
The second holiday is in Canada. Only in Canada. This holiday is called Islander day. They have it every second Monday of February. There isn’t a thing that lots of people do in Islander day, they just have a chance to rest and have ‘family time’ as they should. That was the exact reason why the province of Prince Edward Island made it. They thought a new holiday would give a chance to rest and celebrate family and community. I think that this holiday is nice because we all need time to rest sometimes.
Now, these two were very bright and happy, but this last one is not. This is a ‘special day’ because Koreans need to think about this and be serious about. The February 28th, 1960 democratization uprising was the first ever democratization uprising in South Korea. On Feb 28th, 1960, the high school students suddenly had to go to school for a ‘singing contest’ even though it was Sunday. The high school student immediately knew when they saw police men’s and awkward teachers, it was about the liberal party’s political purpose. They had a president and Vice President voting speech that day, and they worried that the students would come to the speech and protest (they did not like the president because he was a dictator), so they forced the students to go to school on Sunday. The students knew this and ran out of campus and went immediately to the place they were having the speech. The police pushed them back, but when the students kept on resisting, they got poles and started hitting them. Some got to jail, but they got freed quickly. This event led to many more democratization uprisings in South Korea.
There are more February events from all over the world, but I will only cover these three events. Have a great month:)
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