Chinese Halloween

Last Friday, midmorning, Matt called me from work.

“Are you home? I need you to bring me a red shirt.”  He then explained that everyone in his office was wearing red today, and while he wasn’t totally sure why – to celebrate Friday? the whole-office staff meeting that afternoon? in honor of the coworker who was leaving the firm? – he knew it was important that he respect this cultural tradition.

So TJ and I enjoyed the pleasant walk over to Matt’s office building, he ducked out and changed in the bathroom, and the afternoon was spent in harmony with a sea of red-clothed colleagues.

Finally, when the entire staff gathered for their meeting, Matt had the opportunity to quietly ask a coworker exactly why they were all wearing red today.

“Aren’t you American? You should know.”

Matt sheepishly shook his head and asked for further clarification.

“Red is to celebrate Halloween!”

Ah, the Chinese interpretation of American holidays…  

peace signs + red = happy halloween!

Halloween is semi-celebrated here, fueled by the American expats.  An American restaurant owner told me that after years of duplicate costumes in the states, his son was proud to be the only Spiderman in the neighborhood (mostly because he was the only costume in their neighborhood).  In recent years, a few party supply stores have started carrying Halloween decorations, and many expat-frequented bars and restaurants organized Halloween parties for either kids or adults.  When we went out to dinner on Saturday night, there was a crowd of Chinese teenagers dressed in a variety of odd garb doing the Thriller dance flash-mob style (these are the moments you kick yourself for leaving the video camera at home), which we think was in celebration of Halloween.  And the Chinese family who lives above us in our apartment building dressed up and went trick-or-treating Saturday night, so clearly the holiday is slowly spreading its influence in Shanghai.

However, it was still a bit of a challenge to find a costume for TJ.  Our Western grocery store had some very sad pumpkin-sacks and witch hats on a stand at the front.  The children’s market (a huge underground gray-market for all things kid-related) had one stall full of fairy costumes, but none were nearly small enough.  Finally I found this bear-shaped infant bunting hanging in the back of a pajama shop, and with a little eyeliner to the face, voilà!  The kitty-polar bear was born.

treading the line between parental amusement and baby torture

 

Next year, maybe we’ll just wear red.