halloween
there are a few occasions a year that i become aware that canada and australia are actually a bit different. one such occasion was on friday, october 31st: halloween. as someone who doesn't overly enjoy halloween (anymore) it's not something that i get too concerned with. but i do find it interesting.
the month of october has little, if any, exciting days in it here. no thanksgiving. no halloween. the stores are not bombarding you with bats, spider webs, witches and bright orange pumpkins. the shops aren't stocked with bit-sized candies *sigh* and costumes are hard to come by. the kids don't seem to be all that excited about it and the parents even less so. when i asked my clients if they had plans "on friday night" they looked at me with querying eyes "uhm, no. should we?".
i was then told that in fact, halloween is new here. it has only "busted onto the scene" within the last 10 years or so (with any vigor, that is). small pockets of communities have kids trick or treating. some neighbourhoods sent out fliers to houses to let them know that kids would be coming around, knocking on their doors. if they wanted to be part of it, they were to put a black balloon on their door. i laughed and said "that's what the pumpkins are for". they were intrigued and wanted to know more about the "history" of the day. again i laughed and said "well, it does have some history, but heck if anyone really knows about it now"
the whole halloween feel just doesn't seems wrong here: it's in spring, nothing is dying (or going into hibernation); it's light until 8pm (thanks to daylight savings...a whole 'nother post); spiders can actually kill you; bats aren't marsupials; hay doesn't get harvested until march; pumpkins don't exist.
nonetheless, i figure that halloween will become a full-fledged event here in another 5-10 years. complete with the tacky decorations, the witches, the bats, the spiders, the pumpkins, the hay and all the dead leaves. symbols of another north american tradition that doesn't make sense in australia.
xo
posted by michelle at
5:15 a.m.
2 Comments:
Hi Michelle and John! It's been a while, hope all's well with you guys. I'm spending the year in France and had somewhat of a similar experience here with Halloween. We learned that it only really appeared, starting in Paris, around 2000, and is now slowly spreading across the country. Most adults I've talked to about it find the whole idea of Halloween bizarre, which it admittedly is. And, of course, they think it's overly commercial and American. We did see a few kids dressed up and trick-or-treating, but in the mid-afternoon, and mainly to stores. It was a surprise, Halloween wasn't really on our minds. Instead of Halloween here they have Toussaint. It translates apparently to Day of the Dead, which brings to mind an old zombie movie. It's the day when everyone's supposed to go to cemeteries and lay flowers at loved ones' graves. A related holiday I guess.
At least the season was right though - it would feel really weird to have Halloween stuff hawked at me in the spring time lol.
Anyway, take care. Au revoir from France!
6:15 a.m.
i read this blog spot when i looked at your blog last week. i thought i should probably let you know that Hallowe'en is exactly the same now as it was when i was little. a pretty half arsed effort but enough to get kids excited about lollies. unfortunately (i like dressing up, especially as something scary), i don't think it's going to change anytime soon.
10:10 p.m.
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