why halloween would not work in china...

just celebrated my first halloween in america in 4 years... it was quite eventful, fun, and culture-shocking! we took some boys to the santa anita mall where stores pass out candies and there are TONS of kids/families everywhere all dressed up going in and out of stores to get candy... then we proceeded to go down a random neighborhood and do a little trick or treating (the key is to look for houses that are decorated for halloween or have their lights on inviting people to knock on their door!)

but then it got me thinking... halloween would NOT work in china. why? because of the following reasons:

1. chinese people naturally don't like to dress up crazy/be someone different (they will lose face!) or spend the money to do so bc they are too cheap :) (2 years ago at a "halloween" party that my students had, only the foreign teachers dressed up!)
2. free stuff at a mall?? unheard of! if there was free candy at the mall, millions of people would flock there and it would be absolute chaos. not good. (china does not give away many freebies or samples of chicken in the food court haha)
3. i can't picture seeing chinese people opening up their apartment homes to strangers and giving them candy (for free!!)- it's an insider culture so you give LOTS of things to people inside your group, but if you're a stranger... nope! (when we were trick or treating tonight in a mainly asian neighborhood, almost all the people that passed out candy were the white people. haha)

those are my thoughts of why halloween in china would not work out so well. :P meanwhile, i had a fabulous and different halloween.. on top of what was mentioned above, i went shopping and bought a dress for $5 and $2.50(...!!!!) and some other great deals and got to hold a friend's baby the whole night who cuddled perfectly in my arms. :)

the end.

chinese facebook

i have a chinese facebook account. it's VERY similar to the American facebook but all in chinese and i have to use google translate if i want to understand anything! haha anyways, the purpose of getting it is to keep up with students while i'm in america... but lately i've been finding great entertainment and amusement from it by the pictures they post... it's a really different style of stuff they choose to post! haha here's just a sampling of them :)

on 人人 （renren- which means people people) you find everything from cute random pictures of animals to chubby/cute babies to anime to furniture to even stalker photos of their foreign teachers or a picture of your own wedding invitation! haha it gives you a glimpse of what's on their mind, what they dream about, love, and adore... thanks for having a 看看 (kankan- look!)