Knock Knock
Who’s there?
Hallo-wasn’t.
Hallo-wasn’t who?
Hallo-wasn’t a thing in China until now!
Hahaha!
What I mean is, Halloween is not a holiday that is officially celebrated in China. They don’t have any traditional holidays that are similar to it, either. But now young people (college age) are celebrating it because they think its cool to do Western things. Isn’t that so interesting?!
So, to show our Western pride, this Halloween we all wore costumes to class and surprised our teachers. They thought it was a lot of fun! Later they even gave us candy and taught us the Chinese equivalent to “Trick or Treat.” 不给糖就捣蛋！(If you don’t give me sweets I’ll cause trouble!)
Here I am, rocking my Angry Bird costume for the third year in a row;) This year I learned how to say Angry Bird in Chinese: 愤怒的小鸟
Friday night we went to an area of Beijing with a lot of restaurants and bars in order to see the new Chinese Halloween. We saw some great costumes. I kind of think some of the people we met like Halloween better than we do!
Then on Saturday I went to see a Chinese movie with some friends and a Chinese roommate. At home, I work at a movie theater in the summers, so I really wanted to have a Chinese movie theater experience to share with my bosses and coworkers.
Since it was the day after Halloween, everything was decorated with pumpkins, which I thought was so cute, but also just plain awesome. I find it extremely interesting how quickly China has adopted some pieces of Western culture but flagrantly denied other aspects. For instance KFC (and Western fast food, in general) has become huge here, but I’ve heard that Home Depot tried (and failed miserably) to sell DIY projects in China. Obviously, they’re into fast and fangbian (convenient), not “do it yourself.” Lol, I agree! Priorities!
Here’s some Halloween decorations at the movie theatre ^
Waiting in line for our tickets (more decorations)
We ended up choosing a Chinese Kungfu movie called 一个人的武林。(The English name is “The Last of the Best.”) My favorite part of the afternoon was that the movie was completely in Chinese with Chinese subtitles (not English subtitles) and I understood more than 85%! So I was feeling good after that:) I can’t believe how far I’ve come!
3D Kungfu!!!!! What could be better?
Left to right: Rhino, me, Allie (another Wellesley student), and 李正 (a Chinese roommate)