Memories of 'ppira'
By Choi Sung-jin
When I was a little boy, I lived in Huam-dong, a hillside neighborhood of Mount Nam, Seoul. It was back in the mid-1960s when kids had little to play with, and we often went to the mountain. Yes, Mount Nam was a mountain for third graders.
Mount Nam then was far better than now. It had no wire lath walls, and its valleys had water enough for some women to do the laundry. Now and then, we could pick some "ppira" there. I still don't know why people called those flyers ppira, but I guess it was the mispronunciation of the English word, "handbill."