This is Halloween

So for the past week I've been doing almost nothing but Halloween themed classes with my students. Most Vietnamese people seem to be absolutely fascinated by Halloween...one teacher told me that it seems "magical" to them, a time when there are demons and monsters and ghosts everywhere and crazy things happen all night.

Perhaps this is partly true, but I felt like my students all expected more from my Halloween classes, and were maybe a little disappointed. I was kept from showing movies or even video clips in class by technology issues, but I did manage to show one smaller class The Nightmare Before Christmas, which I think was a little bit more in line with what they were expecting than what I did in my other classes, which was hand out some candy, talk about the customs on Halloween, teach a spooky song, and then have students tell ghost stories. Besides, it's hard to get a spooky feeling going in a class of sixty students during the day time. The Halloween thing worked much better in my night classes, which can have anywhere from ten to maybe fifteen or so students. The one real problem though is that no matter how scary I managed to make the atmosphere, it really is impossible to impart what Halloween feels like in a cold place such as New England or regular old England. The roots of Halloween are found in celebrating at a time of year when the earth seemed to be dying, when the last harvest had already been brought in and it was time to worry about the winter ahead. People took this chance to honor their dead relatives and think about their precarious place in our world. I think this idea lends a lot to the modern feel of Halloween, even if we don't think much about it anymore, and I especially believe that cold weather helps remind us, even somewhere far back in our brains, that at one time the holiday meant a bit more. I also feel like it's a little easier to believe a ghost is going to jump out at you when the trees are losing their leaves and a cold, dark, night has descended. A little less easy to be frightened, perhaps, when there are palm trees outside your window and geckoes chilling on your wall. Just saying.

On Saturday night, however, some of the American teachers held a Halloween party, and for the first few hours many of our Vietnamese friends came. Many people actually dressed up (as best we could, it's very hard to find certain things here, although there was one store in the city that sold a few of those rubber Halloween masks) and I made a few jack-o-lanterns. The jack-o-lanterns were very small, as it's pretty difficult to find big gourds of any kind here, but I think they got the point across, and let some of our students and friends see what such a thing would look like. I dressed up as Pikachu, by the way, who is very popular here. It was not something I'm terribly proud of, but went over quite well.

Something interesting that came out of all the Halloween discussions was that I got a lot of information about how Vietnamese people think about ghosts. I have already been told by many students that our university is haunted by the ghosts of students who have committed suicide (other students adamantly deny this) and I also knew that many Vietnamese people believe that the dead freely walk among us, but that many will not admit to believing this. In some of my classes, almost every student said they believed in ghosts, but in others, only a couple did. Additionally, a few students told me that Can Tho (as well as the rest of Vietnam) used to have more ghosts from the war with America, but that because time has passed and cities have grown, many of these ghosts have gone away. I have also been informed that ghosts like warm places, so if a factory gives off a lot of heat, ghosts will go there at night to try to warm themselves up. Keep away from factories, you guys! They also supposedly hang out under trees, and the reason why lightening strikes trees is because it is attracted to the ghosts. Another thing that most of the stories my students told me had in common was that the ghosts all had very long hair that covered their faces and wore white clothing. The long hair thing was sufficiently creepy for me, even without the rest of the story being told! Most of them just involved people seeing such ghosts and being frightened, and nothing much else happening. For an expat's story of his encounter with a Vietnamese ghost, you can go here.

Anyway, that just about does it for Halloween in Vietnam! Somebody broke into my house yesterday (on Halloween...trick or treat? Trick?) and basically stole every electronic item I own, so blogging might be difficult for a while. I'm on a friend's computer now. I've moved to a house that is supposedly more secure and hopefully this won't happen again, especially since I really don't have anything else left to steal. Good times.