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Halloween                                                     By Lisa Lee                                      Contents

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I think Halloween is the most hilarious and interesting festival in America. People always heavily celebrate this festival.

Before Halloween, many houses are decorated with pumpkin-lamps, glittering eyes, and spider webs, figures of ghosts, skulls, and skeletons. Using these materials, people can use their talent to create various horrible but fantastic scenes. At night, these scenes might scare some people. I feel these are one kind of art.

I heard that someone made an awful joke on Halloween night. While the children were knocking on the door to ask for candy, the guy inside opened the door and a skeleton sprang out to welcome the children. That made all the kids scream loudly, and a little one even wet his pants. I am afraid this joke is too much for the little kids.

I also love to watch TV about the Manhattan Halloween parade. Usually the parade starts from Soho and ends at 23rd Street. People put on different masks, dresses and ornaments. They dress up as a devil, as witch, as a terrible ghost or some unknown monsters, etc. If you join the parade, you can dress up as whatever you want. Every year many residents and tourists enjoy watching the Halloween pared.

I was very surprised to watch two couples hold their wedding party on Halloween, shown on TV. The brides did not wear wedding gowns or put on bridal veils. Instead, they wore peculiar makeup and dresses. The two grooms did not wear tuxedo jackets, either. One of the grooms even wore short pants. All the guests dressed in whatever they wanted. The wedding party was really special and hilarious, full of joy. Maybe these two couples wanted their wedding party to be the most fantastic and unforgettable experience in their life.

Coincidentally, the Chinese also have their Halloween—Yu Lan Jie. It is the fourteenth of July by the Chinese calendar. Since ancient times, we have been told that all the ancestors’ ghosts would come back to their families on the night of July 14th. Therefore, people have to cook a big, good meal and have to burn incense in different colors, to pay respects to their ancestors. The parents lead all the children to kneel in front of the ancestor’s table and nod their heads on the ground, begging the ancestors to bless their next generation.

Chinese Halloween sounds more mystical and horrible. People believe July 14th is an ominous day; even the whole month is not a good luck month. Nobody wants to get married on this day (even in all of July), because they want avoid getting bad luck.

But there are many tales or stories about ghosts. Some are funny and some are horrifying. One great uncle said that at midnight on July 14th, if you put a lotus leaf (or banana leaf) on your head and hide behind the door, then you night see many ghosts. My cousin Fong Bo, only mine, boasted that he dared to try. Next morning Fong Bo’s mother cried in deep terror that her only son was missing. Everyone came to help her to find the boy. At last someone heard a light snore from a big vat which was near the ancestors’ table. The little boy was curled asleep in the bottom of the vat, a banana leaf covering his body. When someone lifted him out the boy was startled and yelled, “Ghost! Ghost!” However, that was a happy ending.

Certainly, different nations have different customs. I think the Chinese people pay their respects to their ancestors in Yu Lan Jie, and that is an expression of their filial virtue. But American people are bold and liberal and dress themselves up as the ghosts, even dare to challenge the bad luck while most of the Chinese people blindly worship, used to avoiding ominous things. Which customs then, do you like?

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