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In Madison, Wisconsin everyone from ages 3 to 60 puts on a costume and shows the town a good time. In Billings, Montana, the kids get excited and go out trick-or-treating fully clad in snow coats and boots to tromp through the snow or in costumes and tennis shoes to run around in the warm autumn air. In Iowa City, the college students go out and party and the little kids go from house to house to collect their treats. In Tacoma, Washington kids run around with umbrellas and rain jackets covering up their costumes, and in Spokane, no one really knows what the weather will be like so they just go to the mall.

In China, well…

So the question remains... Is Halloween actually celebrated in China? Nope. Not a chance*. Good luck trying to find fun-sized snicker bars or mini-junior mints to prepare for our fantastic western tradition of putting on a costume, running around like an idiot, and gorging oneself on sugar.

*Inside the gates of the New Beijing Oriental Foreign Language School a strong emphasis is placed on the English language and Western traditions. In this spirit, we celebrated Halloween… China-style. While a big chunk of the details may have been missing, the excitement for the holiday was undeniably present and we had a great time. Halloween started on the 29th of October, blasted through the 30th and had completely fizzled by the morning of the 31st.

While students studied away into the evening of the 29th, we found ourselves “trick-or-treating.” Back home, the kids of course have serious costumes and mom or dad follow along maybe with a mask. In our case a serious role reversal occurred - we had the head to toe costumes and some kids had masks. Normally kids go door to door asking for candy. Here however, we went door to door trying to get the kids to even say “trick or treat” before doling out any treats. Liz wore her Tai Chi outfit, I dressed as Yao Ming (China’s 7’-6” NBA superstar) and all night long we went from classroom to classroom scaring the holy hell out of the students and quite a few of the teachers. It was awesome.

The following morning was the official Halloween parade in which every single one of the 3,000 students mandatorily marched in rows around the track dawning their masks and costumes. Elizabeth was a mummy, wrapped in two whole rolls of toilet paper and couldn’t see a darn thing. Corey, a coworker and I were the MCs for the event and kept a rolling commentary as each class, starting with the first graders, passed in front of the 2,000-odd parents stationed in the bleachers.

“Wow! Take a look at those masks! Super spooky!” “I don’t think I’ve seen a better Spider-Man since that one guy back in high school…” “Hey! Can you believe that witch costume… Fantastic. I mean, really fantastic!” The funniest thing is that less than 1% of the audience understood us. I’m sure the parents loved it regardless, just knowing that a foreign language was being spoken around their little darlings.

Immediately following their Halloween Day parade, while still standing in neat rows within the infield of the track, the masks and costumes were stripped and a full-on Beijing Olympics-style dance performance took place. Every student participated in intricately choreographed dances. About halfway through the performance we stormed the field as the speakers blasted Queen’s We will, we will, rock you. Fully clad in our new Tai Chi outfits, we, alongside the grade schoolers, showed the parents our sweet martial arts skills.

Running concurrently with the Halloween Festivities was a school-wide sports day which comprised of an all school track meet, complete with a high jump, long jump, sprints, a 400 m dash and of course a 4x100 meter relay. The 1st graders just kicked soccer balls. Towards the end of the 1 ½ day meet was the traditional running of the teachers in a 4x100 meter relay. Of the international teachers, the two of us were the most excited. The only problem is that every time we run 100 meters, it is then followed by another 5,000 or 10,000 meters; we were by far the slowest. We did, however, earn a big, fat, “E2” for effort and excitement. Nearly every able-bodied foreign teacher ran in the relays and after multiple spankings by the Chinese teachers, we managed to put together a winning team (comprised of two female Chinese teachers, a Canadian, and a Brit) and for the first time in school history, a partial foreign team won the overall title of “fastest teacher team.”

Go Team Go!!

P.S. Trick or Treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat…

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