This year, however, November 11th is extra special in Korea as children born will have identity numbers that start with "111111". To ensure that their children have a sestet of ones in their identity numbers many pregnant mothers have gone out of their way to get c-section surgeries scheduled for today. According to Reuters, c-sections scheduled for 11 November 2011 is up by 20% from usual. (I'm obliged to a South African friend for sending me the link to the news article.)
In Flanders Fields -- John McCrae
In Flanders fields, the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place;wait and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead, short days ago,
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields!
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands, we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields!
The red poppie became the symbolic flower of remembrance.
In South Africa Poppy Day remembrance ceremonies are held on the Saturday nearest 11 November and some services are also held on the adjacent Sunday. It is not a national holiday, so I'm not sure how many people actually observe it, but it's function is similar to Remembrance Day or Armistice Day celebrated by countries of the Common Wealth and Veterans Day in the United States which is also celebrated on November 11th. South African's typically use Poppy Day to remember South African soldiers who died in WWI, WWII, the Korean War and Border War, as well as surviving veterans of war. Ceremonies are typically held in Cape Town and Pretoria.
11 November 2011 is also a day on which New Agers celebrate "Interconnectedness Day", with heavy focus on the Green Agenda. Previous such Interconnectedness Days were celebrated on 10 October 2010 and 9 September 2009. I guess next year on 12 December 2012 will be the last year Interconnectedness Day will be celebrated in a very very long time.
On a personal note, my first best friend, Matthys du Preez, and I used to celebrate 11 November as our friendship day. I can't remember exactly what the reason was that we chose this day as our friendship day, but we celebrated it as a birthday. Matthys was literally my first friend. I cannot recall any friend before him. Our parents were friends and because we were of the same age we naturally became friends. We also went to the same elementary school (a "plaasskool") together. We grew up on farms in the same farming community and there was only one elementary school where all the children in the community went -- a little school with hardly 300 pupils. We were so close in personality that many people mistook us as twins, to our delight -- I guess the fact that we often dressed alike contributed to it. We often finished each other's sentences and my mother told me that we seemed to communicate telepathically as we would sometimes just look at each other and seem to know what the other was thinking. Unfortunately my first best friend moved away when we were about 11 years old and due to the distance our friendship waned until we completely lost contact. In recent years I've started to increasingly think about my old friend. I was able to look him up and sent him an email with the hopes of meeting with him at the beginning of this year while I was in South Africa, but he didn't respond to my email. I guess he's not as sentimental as I am about those early years. In our late teens, early twenties, we both lost our mothers to illness. I think we could have been a great comfort to each other had we stayed in contact. I sometimes wish I could have been there for him during that time of loss and during other trials he may have experienced as a child. I have fond memories of our friendship and I remember quite distinctly the good and caring friend he was. I am very blessed with some great friends in my life. I have, in part, Matthys to thank for that. Because my first friendship had been such a very close one, that has become my expectation of a real friendship. Matthys' care and loyalty as a young boyhood friend inspired me to become the same type of friend later in my life.
Happy 11 November, for whatever reason you decide to celebrate it.
