This posting is rather delayed, I know. This week is currently mid-term week (yes, even for the grade 1 kids). Anyway, this is a look into the school celebration for Halloween. Of course, this is not a native holiday to the Chinese, so their understanding of it isn’t too deep, but they are eager to expose the kids to more western holidays and (some) traditions. Besides, this is the perfect holiday for these kids, as they get a chance to do what we in the west take for granted, which is the chance to dress up as whoever they want to be and receive candy for it.

One of the kids had his birthday earlier in the week, and when it came time to celebrate they did not hold back their enthusiasm.

This is a natural reaction when you know that quite possibly there is a treat on the way later for everyone.

Since the school said that there was no budget set aside for this event, the teachers were not too motivated to spend their own money to try to come up with the decorations. The answer to this dilemma was to tell the kids that if they wanted any costumes or decorations for the class, then their parents would need to get them. Luckily, there were enough parents who were willing to indulge the kids, and there was plenty of candy. And since there is no actual trick-or-treating that goes on in China, the only chance they had was during the school activity. All the kids traveled to other classrooms with their homeroom teachers to partake in whatever activity that classroom was hosting. In our class, we showed an educational PPT. This was followed by a video showing people getting pranked on Halloween. This was especially effective at the end of the event when the last two classes were in our classroom (due to time) and the kids enjoyed watching other people get scared. I thought that was a good way to further let them understand part of what makes Halloween so much fun.

Of course, some of the kids had similar costumes as some other kids, but I don’t think they minded.