So one of my neighbours, Jason, and his wife have a couple of little boys, and they were done up as Spiderman for Hallowe’en, and I gave them a little candy. It was pretty cute, their dad urging them to say, “Trick or Treat”, and them all reluctant to do so, until finally, they kinda got the words out (they’re very young), and we clapped and cheered and I gave them some candy. And then I ran off to class.
I mention this because I haven’t given candy to children for Hallowe’en in years — it’s not celebrated in Korea, and even now, it’s only more of a young-adult party-in-costumes thing. So it was unusual for me to see any children costumed up. I don’t think it’ll ever really catch on here, but that’s fine. It’s not my favorite holiday anyway. But the pair of little Spidermen was cute.
Not to take anything away from your neighbors, but the introduction of Halloween into Korea irks me. Then again, I never really liked Halloween. For me it was just an opportunity for the neighborhood delinquents to roam the streets with eggs and shaving cream. Although I will admit it was kind of fun waiting behind the big spruce in the front yard with the hose and then blasting the buggers when they showed up to egg our house.
Charles,
Yeah, I never really was so big on the holiday itself. Of course, this is a case of an American parent wanting his kids to have some American pop culture along with the Korean culture they’re continually exposed to. So, he took them trick-or-treating in the Foreign Teachers’ Residence.
What’s weirder and kind of irksome to me is the way young adults are taking up Hallowe’en here. It’s such a stupid holiday, why adopt it? But I don’t know that it’s going the way of pranks and all. I though only costumes had come into vogue here.
I guess people like to dress up. I won’t deny that there’s a part of the holiday that is good, clean fun, but at least when I was growing up that fun was often outweighed by “mischief.”
And here I am seeing my pagan friends reflecting on Samhain on their LJs….
And we were the only house on our street (this is in Texas) handing out candy, which was a disappointment when my kids’ daddy tried to take the little ones out for their first “trick or treat”. It was nice of you to participate, Gord!
(My mom and her brothers threw rotten apples at one house when they were little — the guy was the one person on the street that refused to hand out anything for trick or treat, and they reinforced his opinion of the holiday. At least it wasn’t eggs.)
Julia,
Is it because of pseudo-Christian objections that most of your neighbours aren’t doing Halloween anymore?