Halloween in China

Halloween, that beloved American holiday, where children and adults get to dress up, scare people and be scared, and eat way too much candy, has been spreading around the world.

It’s even popular in some cities in China. I’m sure there are still many people here that have never even heard of it, but most major cities do have some sort of celebration that happens, even if it is only at theme parks or other more Western tourist attractions.

Halloween in Shenzhen

Shenzhen has 3 major tourist attractions, Window of the World, Happy Valley, and Splendid China, that do something for the holiday. They are all within walking distance of each other and are about the only real tourist attractions in the city.

So far, I’ve only had the chance to visit one of them, but I do intend to go to the other two (hopefully soon as it is starting to cool off). Happy Valley is an amusement park with a couple rollercoasters and a water park. Splendid China is more about the different cultures of China.

For Halloween, they all put on haunted houses and decorate. I can see the ads everywhere!

Halloween Weekend

I have to walk past Happy Valley to get from the nearest metro station to work. Usually, it’s a little busier on the weekends. But on Halloween weekend, it was insane! It was like half the city was trying to go celebrate.

There were people at every intersection directing traffic. Most of these intersections have no lights or stop signs and the pedestrians don’t wait for anything. On a normal day, it’s hectic, at best, and terrifying, at worst.

Usually, on the weekends, there’s a volunteer or two directing the traffic at one of the busier unregulated intersections. Halloween, there were at least 5 volunteers and several cops spread along the street between Happy Valley and the metro station, including 2 cops in the intersection with the traffic lights.

The police had blocked off one lane of traffic to give the pedestrians more room to walk. China already has some of the widest sidewalks I’ve ever seen on city streets, but they were no match for the Halloween crowds. They easily filled up the sidewalk and the traffic lane.

Swimming against the crowd to go home after work was not easy. It was practically a workout just to walk those couple little blocks. And, once I made it, I still had to get past the mall crowd and everyone that was admiring its giant pumpkin to fight my way into the metro station and onto a train.

The giant pumpkin before the evening crowds arrived

Pumpkin Carving

Carving pumpkins is one of the most popular Halloween traditions, right after eating too much candy. While China hasn’t really embraced this tradition all that much. You can still buy pumpkins, if you know where to look.

My friends bought a few pumpkins and invited a small group over to give them all really bad faces, watch scary movies, and play with their new Nintendo Switch.

My friend did a much better job carving than I did painting

Halloween at the Training Center

Because of the new education requirements, many places are no longer allowed to celebrate Halloween. Many of the teachers that work in public schools have been banned from doing anything to celebrate.

Autumn

However, we are celebrating the season. All the students have to write fall poems. Now, getting kids to do anything is challenging. The complaining is almost non-stop in my classroom.

My first class wrote a short poem and did their normal writing assignment in one class. It was a lot of writing for them but it worked out. Unfortunately, the parents complained that the poems were too short and simple. Apparently, we aren’t allowed to do anything easy. For the rest of my classes, the poem took over their writing classes.

But, after they finished complaining, they all did it.

I still have one class of little kids that has to do something, but writing a poem is completely out of the question; they’re too young.

The little ones folded a piece of paper and drew four pictures after we talked about some things they can see in fall (in reality, I walked them through a PowerPoint with lots of pictures of things they know that are common in fall).

Once they finished drawing, they had to write something. They’re still working on learning the letters so I had to write the sentences they wanted and they copied them.

But, I’ve made it through. Mostly. A few still have a little bit more writing to do and they have to record a video, like everyone else, but that’s a problem for next week.

Trick or Treating

At the training center, we were told we aren’t doing anything big, like they used to do in years past, but we can do some smaller things in our classes. I’m planning on showing everyone The Monster Mash. It’s one of my favorite Halloween songs.

However, a few days before Halloween weekend, we got told that, during break time, the kids are going from classroom to classroom trick or treating.

We have to get candy and think up a game for them to play in each class. My Chinese teacher took care of the candy. I had to think up a game to play.

After a little googling, I decided on a modified version of the game Apple Pass. Instead of passing apples, I’d get some orange balloons and have the kids pass it under their chin, like the traditional game, or with their elbows, as there is a pandemic on and all.