Halloween in China: just a bit of fun, or too scary for the authorities?
- Many Chinese are happy to enjoy parties and school activities, while others object to importing Western traditions
- Some local governments ban festive costumes and make-up from subway or brand them a threat to social stability
When Wang Guyue’s five-year-old boy stepped into his English extracurricular class this week, he was greeted by a room full of princesses, ghosts and pumpkins.
“My son is afraid of ghosts, so I dressed him up as a Chinese swordsman,” she said.
Since it is an English-teaching school, Wang thinks it is good practice to celebrate Western holidays, so that the children can learn the culture as well as the language. She said that the teachers explained Halloween to the children, but that their limited English meant the children might not understand everything.
For many young Chinese, October is filled with Halloween celebrations such as dress-up parties – even as anti-Western holiday rhetoric crops up every year, with some saying dressing up as ghosts is “inauspicious” and some subway stations banning Halloween make-up.