A Not-So-Halloweeny Halloween

China knows Halloween but China does not do Halloween. Everyone one knows what it is and when it is but no one dresses up, no one tricks or treats, no one decorates and there is not a single pumpkin treat to be found. In WalMart there is a half a shelf dedicated to Halloween and it showed up about a week before Halloween (as opposed to the whole stores dedicated to Halloween that pop up in malls across America about a month and a half before). A China Halloween consists of paper pumpkins taped on all of the classroom walls and pumpkin shaped lights draped on the windows. It means that instead of classes, the kids get to color masks and play games and watch movies. Of course, we added our own American touches by making them sing songs like The Five Little Pumpkins and having them wrap each other in toilet paper and calling it a "mummy race". But, once the bell rang (on Thursday, not even on the actual day of Halloween), it was over. There were no people dressed up on my walk home. No families out going door to door for candy. It was just a regular night. If it hadn't been so cold and rainy, I might have forgotten that it was even (almost) Halloween. On the actual day of Halloween, I was eating lunch with some students at the University near my apartment and one of them looked at me and said "oh today is your Halloween, right? Happy Halloween!"... "Oh, right. Happy Halloween!"

Actually, aside from the lack of pumpkin treats (especially the lattes), I like China's Halloween much more than the Halloween at home! I could say that it is because the focus has been taken off of consumerism or because, for China, it's less about the candy and costumes and more about fun songs and crafts but the real reason is, China's Halloween isn't scary. At home, Halloween has become mostly scary. Scary movies and scary costumes. Here, Halloween is what I make it. Beside the Halloween party at school, China's Halloween is eating a Dove chocolate bar and watching Hocus Pocus (in the middle of the day of course because I live alone and watching it at night is a risk that I am just not willing to take). It's oreos and the Disney movie Halloweentown (which is so cute and good that it can be watched at any time of the day). It is cute and fun and silly, instead of scary. Unfortunately, the fact that I had to do most of the Halloween festivities by myself meant that, on the actual day of Halloween, I'd forgotten about it. Whoops. Guess I will just have to wait until next year.