The cold snap has finally passed and Seoul welcomed in the spring on March 15. On the same day, the Korea.net team, with offices at the National Museum of Korea in Yongsan-gu District, received a package.

Bojana Doneva, Diana Trifonova and Lilia Bozhinova, all Korea.net Honorary Reporters from Bulgaria, sent a package to the Korea.net team 

The package was sent by three of our Bulgarian Korea.net Honorary Reporters: Bojana Doneva, Diana Trifonova and Lilia Bozhinova. A neatly typed letter with small tokens and bracelets made of white and red were placed inside the package, which just flew over 8,000 kilometers to get here. To greet the spring, they sent a package to thank the Korea.net team for its help and to wish us all good health in the coming season. 

The letter sent to Korea by our Korea.net Honorary Reporters in Bulgaria.

The letter's text is shown below.

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"Dear Tae Sol & Korea.net team,

We are very happy that you finally got to receive this letter and the small tokens and bracelets in the package. Probably they will arriv

e later than 1st March but we hope it is not much later than that day. What you see here are Bulgarian adornments called 'martenitsa.' As you can notice they are predominantly made of white and red yarn.

Made of white and red yarn, the Bulgarian adornments, called martenitsa, are worn on the Baba Marta Day on March 1 in Bulgaria.

In Bulgaria we wear them from the Baba Marta Day (this translates to 'the day of Grandma March') which is on the 1 March until the wearer first sees a stork, swallow or a budding tree. Wearing a martenitsa is a tradition connected with welcoming spring and the red and white are a symbol of health and prosperity.

This is what a traditional martenista looks like -- the red doll is female and is called 'Penda' while the white, male doll is called 'Pizho.' In recent years there have been many and different trends in regard to how the martenitsas are designed and how to make them look more fashionable. Younger people usually wear the bracelets by there are also versions of martenitsas that can be worn as rings and necklaces.   

This is a traditional martenista where the red doll is female and is called "Penda" and the male doll is called "Pizho."

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​Since spring is approaching and we are very happy that we have the chance to work for Korea.net, we wanted to wish you and your colleagues a very successful and healthy year!"

We chose one particular martenitsa for you Tae Sol since we communicate mostly with you about the articles we write so hopefully your colleagues won't mind that we singled you out :)

Best wishes
Friday Chopsticks
Bojana, Diana & Lilia

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Bojana, Diana and Lilia, along with other colleagues from their country, have been running a radio program called the "Friday Chopstick" over the past three years. The main purpose for the radio's creation was to swiftly deliver East Asian news, especially Korean news, to Bulgarian audiences.

The Korea.net team thanks our Bulgarian friends for their thoughtful gift. Spring has definitely come, twice, now, to our office.

For more information about the "Friday Chopstick," please visit their site below:

Website: http://fridaychopsticks.reakcia.net/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/FridayChopsticks
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FridayChopsticks/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/fridaychopsticks/



By Tae Sol
Photos: Tae Sol
Korea.net Staff Writer
taesol@korea.kr