Smoggy Thoughts: Haunted Halloween!

There is Halloween in Taiwan! Not super crazy or anything like in the States, but it does exist. The bigger stores carry a small Halloween section, which mainly has a limited variety of children’s costumes, some witch hats, weird glasses and masks, devil forks and broomsticks. Oh, and the scream guy mask, of course. They also have some cool decorative garlands and window stickies.

This past Saturday (Oct. 22^nd) we put on a Haunted House at the branch I work at! It took some work to get everything set up, with some long, unpaid nights, but I think in the end it was pretty worth it. We started the process about 2 weeks ago with just light decoration making during down time, and ended with the night before staying until almost 1 a.m. We made everything, including a coffin, some tombstones, covering the walls in black and so on. So on Friday night after classes were done at 9 we got right to work.

One of the girls came equipped with a few bags of traditional fried Taiwanese goodness. The contents of which the locals I work with aren’t even exactly sure! I was snacking away at something that looked like a French fry, but not the same taste, when I asked what it was. Someone said it was a type of fish, and then they started arguing about what it really was in Chinese. The consensus ended up being that the older one didn’t know anything about what the new cool food is. Also in the mix was some pig’s blood cake, (yes that’s what it really is) which I opted to stay away from. I have tried it before, and just knowing that I was chewing on blood cake and swallowing it… made me feel ill, so I think I’ve had my fill on that one. Then there was some chicken butt on a stick (they eat EVERY part of the chicken, and all other animals here for that matter) and something that looked like sweet potato wedges and tasted really good. It all made me feel pretty healthy about myself.

So the manager had said she didn’t want us staying very late, so around 10:30 she called to make sure we were on our way out and leaving. This actually was the case, until my co-workers told me we were just moving to the McDonalds to continue our crafty work so the manager wouldn’t get mad. Yahooo!

I then spent the next 2 hours cutting out ghost after ghost after ghost. My 32 oz. coke kept me company while the other teachers spoke in Chinese, but they were nice and tried to speak mainly in English for me. Some other customers seemed interested in what we were doing, and one guy came up to me and asked, practicing his English! Then the conversation turned to me and he was curious about where I was from, why I was here, etc. explaining that he could tell I didn’t look Taiwanese... good eye on that guy. The night finally came to an end, and we got to go home. The next day was show time!

The Haunted House started at 5, but naturally I needed to arrive earlier. I had decided that it was probably in my best interest to get dressed up and in my full make-up before getting there. I was going as a witch (really awesome, I know but I couldn’t be too creative with these kids). This meant that I would walk from my apartment to the bus stop (around a 10 minute walk) dressed as a witch, carrying my broomstick and all. It was definitely a good decision, and I couldn’t help but laugh as I walked down the streets and saw people bend their necks and nudging their friends to get a look at me. Waiting at the bus stop was really fun as well.

Right before leaving my apt!

So I arrived at my branch in YangMei. They all started clapping as I walked in, they were impressed with me and my outfit! The manager was there and she busted up laughing, asking wide eyed “Didn’t you take the bus here?!” and hearing my response of yes.

Everyone was set up and ready for action, I helped some of the other teachers get their faces made up and the kids started to arrive. The Haunted House was set to last for 2 hours, with 4 different rotations, each lasting 25 minutes: 3 classrooms with games and one as the actual “scary room.” I was working in one of the games classrooms, teaching the Halloweeny words: vampire, ghost, jack-o-lantern, bat, pumpkin, witch, broomstick, skeleton, and trick or treat. Of course I gave them all actions as well. Then I played just a variety or games getting them to use the words and such. I think the real fun was to be had in “scary room,” and I heard they counted at least 10 kids started to cry, with one even hitting one of the girls working up there! She said it was because “she scared her,” well… yeah?! Overall there were 76 kids that came and at the end I taught them all the chant “Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat.” It was a success!