The Chinese don't get this holiday. I was decorating my house the other day and everyone stopped and stared at me and our house. And I didn't even have that many decorations up. Maybe it was the styrofoam gravestones. The Chinese may be superstitious or it may be against their qi. Since we don't have pumpkin picking and they don't sell Halloween lights, we Westerners did our very best to celebrate this holiday American-style, and we didn't do such a bad job considering the resources we had! Some were creative and brought duffel bags of "real" candy back from the States, others carved watermelons, and many went to the fabric market to have costumes custom-made for a fraction of the price paid in the US. Since this holiday is not celebrated in China, the expat compounds have their own trick-or-treating. Well, you can just imagine that through the years, the Chinese and their children have caught wind of this amazing day where you go around and collect free candy from strangers! Needless to say, every house runs out of candy (and every year, from what I've heard!). So, around 5:30pm, the minute it gets dark, you better get out there and trick-or-treat because the timer is on! In about 1-1/2 hours the "No More Candy" signs go on the doors and the outdoor lights get switched off...
Not a very large selection.
These ugly, brown, expensive things are what the Chinese try to pass off as Halloween pumpkins. Of course, the locals think foreigners are crazy for buying them! I do too. We opted for the small Japanese squash below which looks more like a pumpkin. And it's a lot cheaper!
Its shell is a lot harder to cut and there are lots more seeds than regular USA pumpkins.
We did our best to make the house look festive! On Halloween night, we put out some candles and most houses did too, so it looked very cool, kind of like a movie set with all of the trick-or-treaters walking around in the light fog with the candles. Spooky...
Guess who's under those masks...
Want some candy, kid? Matt scared away some kids... we had a lot of laughs!
Some of the Chinese candy from our loot (not very good)... but we also got some Dove chocolates and this Mom scored a Reese's from a friend down the street, so all is good!
Until next year...
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