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| The Clean Air Pair. The author and her husband go as air purifiers for Halloween in 2012. Non-Scary Costumes are no longer allowed in the Sheppard household. |
I love celebrating different cultural traditions, provided they do not involve burning people at the stake or, say, shooting M-16's into the air. Here in Beijing I happily blaze and kerpow!!! through crates of gunpowder to trick the Jade God at Chinese New Year. I roll out and wolf down plates of dumplings with glee during the Moon Festival (Mooncakes: not so much.) We even wear special red (protective!) underwear during our astrological year.
I also love sharing American cultural traditions with Beijingers. Halloween is a Sheppard household specialty, second only to St. Patrick's Day. And we get right proper with our celebratory tactics. The point of Halloween, you see, is to frighten away all the demons from the earth; send them right back to the moldering holes from whence they came. Halloween costumes therefore MUST be scary; princesses need not apply. Halloween also must be celebrated on the actual day. We don't wanna hear no bullocks about it being a school night.
Prior to my children growing up and having large and LOUD opinions, I figured funny costumes would pass muster at Halloween. I gave myself ten kinds of kudos for our "Clean Air Pair" costumes last year. Weren't we clever being air purifiers in world's dirtiest city! Come on, I had a cloud of back soot emitting from our butts. Our tag line was: "cleaning the air using fossil fuels." Funny right? Not to my then 8-year old. "That's not scary at all. Mom." He said while heaving his shoulders in utter defeat. In his mind, he is doing the world a favor by dressing up as ghoulish as possible. It is a duty and people should thank him. It took me a while to come on board, but you gotta admit kid does have a point.
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| My kids' 2013 Halloween Costumes. |
So here I am in 2013 totally working this scary bit, and it's Halloween and it's time to take Ruby our dog-come-vampire-bat out for a walk. I grab a leash, the poop bags and, naturally, my giant head knife. You must understand that Halloween is not celebrated in China aside from the occasional foreigner--who incidentally make up less than .01% of the total population, many of whom are not American or British and therefore do not celebrate the holiday at all. I guarantee more Chinese know the exact acreage of the Louisiana Purchase than know about Halloween.
I head to the public park along the riverside, the park that is crowded with retirees line dancing, hoarking, doing tai chi, ramming their chests into trees or belting out arias while slapping themselves, with a knife through my head. The usual happened: people stared at me, but it was the same you-are-a-foreigner stare, not the HOLY SHIT! YOU HAVE A KNIFE THROUGH YOUR HEAD!!!!!!!! ogle.
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| Author at 8:00 am, trolling Beijing with a bloody knife through her head. |
A couple finally approached me......and asked what kind of dog I had. Another group of dog walkers stopped to check out the "hot sausage" (translation for dachshund). I figured since I had an audience I would totally educate them on our Halloween tradition. (In Chinese, of course).
Me: "It's Halloween today," I said.
Toothless Man in Group: Pointing to our apartments. "Do you live there?"
Me: "Yes."
Toothless Man: "How much rent do you pay?"
Me: "A Lot."
Toothless Man's Wife: "2,000 yuan a month?"
Me: "No, 22,000 a month. Hey! I have a knife in my head!!!"
Toothless Man: "Are you crazy to pay that much?"
Me. "Crazy, yes. You want to see my kids?" Shows the group a picture of kids dressed in their totally horrid costumes. Crowd gathers and squints at my cell phone. Silence ensues as they pass my phone around.
Mao-Suited Man in Group: "How much does your husband make?"
Me: "Um, I don't know."
Woman dressed for the Next Ice Age: "Why do you have two kids? Do you have the One Child Policy in your country?
Mao-Suited Man: Shouting. "How do you not know what your husband makes????????"
Me: "In America we are allowed to have up to 100 kids."
Ice Age Woman: "Oh, that's good."
Me: Suppressing a desire to start screaming: "Call 110, I have a knife in my head!!!!!!!" Sighs and says: "Um. Ok. Happy Halloween, everyone!"
So went my great Halloween Education Campaign. It fell flatter than a mooncake under a steamroller. I spent the rest of the day wearing my knife and China spent the rest of the day ignoring me.
One friend saw the three of us carousing about and shook her head. "I don't like this tradition. I don't understand why you have to look so scary. It is certainly not OUR tradition." Huh? What? Shenme? "Have you been in a Buddhist temple lately? Those statues and paintings make Halloween look like the Easter Bunny!"
"What's the Easter Bunny?"
Oh, nevermind. Got any fire crackers?
