Halloween! It is Halloween! Happy Halloween, Everyone!
Halloween in China is not celebrated. As you know from last year’s Halloween post, the Chinese are afraid of ghouls, ghosts and goblins. Well, not afraid exactly. More like terrified, and even that is not an appropriate word.
In the movie ‘Because of Winn Dixie’, the father describes a pathological fear as a fear that goes beyond all reasonable fears. That would seem to suit the climate in China come Halloween time. Here, people will walk down dark alleys with no protection, work from heights with no fall arrest system, eat questionable food and drink water from stagnant pools (after it has been boiled, of course). They have no fear of this abysmal traffic or of the afterlife and only a minimal fear of their government nowadays.
But let them encounter a single foreigner made up as a ghoul and they will shriek, cringe and turn away. Their hearts will pit-a-pat in their chest and they will throw up their hands and gnash their teeth. Some, who are more traditional, will clap their hands to ward off the evil.
That was the effect I had on campus last night, after having made myself up to look ancient.
Originally the gig was to comprise of Gary, who I would dress up as my grandmother and I, who would parade my ‘relative’ around. Unfortunately he had urgent business to attend to, so I had to fly solo.
One small note: Halloween fell on Monday, and Mondays are my long days. I start teaching at 8AM, go till lunchtime, take a short break and then teach for another two periods. After resting for two hours I host an Oral English group, exclusively for those who wish to improve their spoken English. In this informal group I get to spend time one on one with students who are serious about their lessons, as opposed to entire classrooms of students, some of who don’t care a fig about learning English or anything else. All in all, on Mondays, I am over 12 hours in the business of teaching. It is exhausting.
And now, trick or treating?
Why not? It is good to have a little fun! I just shuffled my Oral English group to Tuesday. Monday evening is now mine to do with what I choose, and I choose to make people scream and turn away.
If you think about it, that is a refreshing change from all of those people who stare and point, and all of those students who chase me down and literally cling to me.
After Gary texted me his regrets I figured the gig was up. No second person to make up as my grandmother and there goes half the joke. But I had told all of my students to look for me around campus. I figured I had to become the entire joke. I enlisted the help of my good friends Zhanny and Dash. They would walk the ‘old woman’ around campus. And then I set to making myself up.
Costume materials are scarce in China. The Chinese do indeed have occasions where they wear costumes, just not Halloween costumes. So, I had to go through my closet and figure out what to wear. The biggest challenge was trying to figure out how to make myself up to look creepy. I only have a limited palette of makeup, and I wear that every day without looking creepy at all – at least, I HOPE I don’t.
Using eye liner to define wrinkles that haven’t yet settled into my ordinary face, and a dark eye shadow to smudge them, and then a little bit of powder under my eyes to make them look draggy. The rest of my face done up in pearl colored eye shadow to make it look pale, and finally a glistening lip gloss, to make it appear as though I was salivating. Now for the crowning touch: the blond wig.
When Dash knocked on the door a few minutes later she squealed with fright and turned away. We both laughed but I think she was really serious when she said I frightened her because she sat on the couch and would not look at me. This fear of ghouls is really ingrained, don’t’cha know. Fortunately she did get over it. It would not do to have my escort so afraid that she refused to escort me.
I had the same reaction all over campus. People looked at me strangely and some even turned away. Most accepted candy only after Zhanny or Dash explained it was a traditional Western custom to scare away the spirits who might come after their harvest. And poor Zhanny! We met her midway through campus and when I turned around and shone the light on my face, holding the flashlight under my chin she shrieked and hunkered down with her hands over her head. She had to know it was me because… really: how many tall women own that particular green dress on campus?
No, her reaction was instinctive and culturally ingrained. To her, in that instant, there was no doubt that some evil spirit had infiltrated her favorite foreigner and had taken possession of her body. Only when I gave up the menacing mien and laughed did she come out of her crouch and confess “You scared me!” I know she was just being polite. What she really meant to say was: “Jeepers! You frightened me out of a year’s growth and don’t you ever EVER do that to me again!!!” or some other emphatic statement involving profanity, none of which would be appropriate for this blog.
By far the strangest reaction I got came toward the end of the night, after all of the candy had been distributed. My little group was standing beneath a streetlight and some kids were marveling that I looked so ugly when a man came up to me, peering intently at my face. I returned his gaze boldly and intoned the by now familiar greeting “zhang dian jie kuai le” which is the Chinese equivalent of ‘Happy Halloween’. The whole time Dash was explaining that this was a traditional American festival this man is getting closer and closer. At nearly kissing distance, our eyes still locked on to each other, he stated I should go home and wash my face, and then walked away. The students and I howled with laughter!
The Chinese have a particular habit of responding to a gift with a greater gift. Thus, when my group was lingering by the girls’ dorm while I handed out candy, two girls, earlier recipients of treats, came back. One of them gave me a chocolate bar and the other a mask – the red one you see in the picture. Upon my return home I put her mask in the bookcase dedicated to gifts.
The coolest part of the night came when, on the way home we ran across a group of kids. A rather large boy was holding a ghoul’s costume in his hand. Apparently he had been wearing it until recently because he was sweating profusely. When our groups met, we both stopped dead in our tracks: what? TWO Halloween revelers on campus? As they say in Chinese: Bu Huai Ba! Impossible! Needless to say, I had to get a picture. Equally needless to say I did not have my camera with me, so I relied on Grace, who took this picture with her SmartPhone.
It is now Tuesday morning; Halloween is over. The makeup is washed off and the green dress is back on its hanger. The blond wig is stashed, ready for its next incursion into terror. As I walk around the house opening my drapes and formulating this entry my eyes light upon the bookcase containing gifts. There rests the mask, testimony to the fun that now only exists in my memory and in this blog.
I sit down at my desk to write.
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