Mid-Autumn Festival & Halloween

The closest Chinese Holiday to Halloween is the Mid-Autumn Festival which just ended with September. It is also known as the Moon Festival. The traditional food of this holiday is Moon Cake, which is delightful if I must say so myself. Once upon a time only the emperor could eat moon cake, it was not a delicacy for the common man. Upon the fall of the emperor the moon cake was dispersed across the nation so that all could enjoy it, or so one of the stories about the Mid Autumn Festival state. The festival commemorates an uprising in China against the Mongol rulers of the Yuan Dynasty. There is a strong connection with the moon on this holiday and many different versions of the tale about a "woman in the moon". Due to the lightly lit up lanterns and how many chose this time to honor their dead ancestors, it is the closest holiday to the Western Halloween. Some of the Mid Autumn Customs are; eating moon cake outside underneath the moon, putting pomelo rinds on one's head, carrying lanterns, burning incense in reverence to deities, planting mid autumn trees, collecting dandelion leaves and distributing them to family members, and fire dragon dances. I only participated the burning of incense.

I never really thought about it before but Halloween is a marvelous part of my American Culture. Dressing up in costumes of the dead, witches, devils, etc. The trick or treating, syringed filled jello shots, haunted houses on front lawns, jack-o-lanterns, it's all so absolutely wonderful. Plus, its pretty neat to think the spiritual realm and the human realm become closer on the 31st of this month. I looked up some of the actual origins of this great holiday and turns out it's thought to be the Celtic New Year. In the past the dead is honoured and feasted as though they were alive. With the coming of the Christian religion the day was turned into Halloween. Since the Christians were unable to prevent individuals from celebrating this holiday they just sprinkled holy water everywhere and gave everything a new name. ::Laughing:: This only names a few facts; I wouldn't be able to name or talk about them all because the holiday is actually made up of hundreds of different cultures and customs combined. It definitely evolved over the years!
Ian dressed as the Green Ranger!

Me Being Creepy!

One of the biggest things I miss is the Halloween store. I don't actually know why I miss it so much since it was just a store with a bunch of grotesque costumes and make up but whatever! I thought it was cool. Last year I dressed Ian up as a power ranger and me and Tina dressed up as dead people. We found a decent lit up street and trick or treated for a few hours. Ian was terrified but I guess that was the point. Anyway, other than that I didn't do anything else. No Halloween parties last year, unfortunately. No Halloween parties this year either. I think my favorite Halloween was the year of 2006. I hated that year in general but it was a fun Halloween. I took Ian to his pre school where they had an open house. Differen't classrooms were made up with different themes. One classroom may blind fold you and have you stick your hands in a bowl or grapes or spagetti. Another one may be dark and called a Haunted House which they have you walk through as staff grab at your ankles. Plus I went to a couple Halloween House parties which were okay. Don't remember much of it but I'm sure it was colorful. I think it was just neat that I could dress however I wanted to, have my hair a different color each day and not have to worry what people thought. THATS THE FUN OF HALLOWEEN! I asked my father what would happen if I dressed up as a dead person here and he said people would probably get scared and run away or think irrationally and shoot me. Well, there goes that idea!

Since this year I am in Indonesia and there is no Halloween Holiday I decided to do my best in keeping the spirit of the season alive in my own life. Indonesia is rich in spooks! And that's NO JOKE! So my plan is to collect all the ghostly scary knowledge and places here and share them on this blog, plus I should have some fun doing it. I already have a list of interesting things I'd like to share on here after I dig around a little more. There is even one area of this house I stay in that has had sightings and other peculiar happenings which I will get into a bit more later. This year I won't be doing any of the norm so I have a few ideas to compromise. One idea is I could buy a bag of candy and just hide goodies around my bedroom. I also plan on downloading some recipes online, maybe have Ian do some spooky baking or something. Who knows? Maybe I could even do some arts & crafts and decorate my bedroom with spooky stuff, not that it necessarily needs it, it's a little creepy as it is.