Well, not much.
If you recall, in Beijing we had a massive party and everyone was in costume and crazy. It was a good time. But Shenzhen is smaller, newer, and with fewer foreigners. That said, the holiday did not go uncelebrated.
While costume supplies were short and good parties were fewer we still managed with what we could. The bar district was crowded to capacity. And while most costumes were hand down and low maintenance the creative level was high.
I was also put in charge of throwing a Halloween party for my school. Sounds terrifying, right? Well it was up until it happened. Because in typical China style I was given no details whatsoever. Initially my instructions were to have a Halloween party on either Thursday or Friday after school for somewhere between 25 - 1,000 kids. Ahh! Luckily it turned out that what they really meant was "We want a Halloween party, but we want you to do it. So pick a day and whatever and make it happen." So I was able to reign it in to throwing parties for my interesting groups. The school was very kind and bought costumes, candies, and decorations for us.
I had a "yep, I'm still in China" moment when we were shopping for the supplies. I of course wanted the masks, vampires, skeletons, spider webs, etc. But my colleagues vetoed because, and I quote, "no! it's scary!" So we ended up with lots of feathery sequined nonsense. A lot of it looked more like Carnival than Halloween. I think the concept of Halloween got lost in translation somewhere!
The parties were pretty fun. My costume relay race failed due to either over excitement, misunderstandings or mistranslations (Me: "Ok, when I say 'go', run around the circle and come back. Then give your costume to the second person. Then they run around the circle and come back. Then they give it to the third person. Ok?" Colleague's translation: "Put on the costumes and walk very slowly, don't run! Show everyone what your costume looks like."). But I had a word search and pictures to draw, and at the very end right before they went home to their parents, I gave them candy. The older kids got super whiney because only the race winners got a prize for the race, they wanted more candy, they wanted more to colors, etc. Oy. There are definitely some spoiled children here, good thing they're cute. This week I'm showing them The Great Pumpkin, so I hope they enjoy it :)
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| Christiane and me in costume. It's supposed to be a yin yang (get it??) but we're also accepting batman villains and black swan. We are not accepting raccoons. |
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| Halloween party for interesting group |
That is hilarious! Halloween in China? What do they think the holiday is about? Do the kids not play playground games like tag or kick the ball? That was a huge party for you to put together, sounds like you did a great job. Do let me know how they like the Great Pumpkin, I am big fan of Dr. Suess.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great idea for a costume, Yin Yang was very creative, I’ll have to copy you next year with Dad. Is Christiane another teacher? Did you get to have beer in bag at the bar district :-)?