Catch Up Time: Halloween Party

First of all, I would like to apologize for the massive lapse of time since my last my blog post.... I have been super busy lately (I will talk about this in later posts, that I will type now but schedule them for coming days) Right now I will catch you up with what has been going on in the meantime...

I believe that I left off with the lead-up to the Halloween party... Wow, that was more than two weeks ago! (Sorry) We had the party in the zoo behind my apartment. before the party, Ben and I strung some Christmas lights out of his window and looped them through the trees and around the fence... This was quite a difficult endeavor and actually took the better part of an hour to accomplish because of faulty strands and an accident with a strand being sliced in two by a slammed window.. (small) Ben's fault, not mine. (sorry Ben)

for the actual party we each decided that we would invite only 4 Chinese in order to keep the number low and manageable. This worked out pretty well and we had about 40 in attendance. The teachers were the only ones that took the idea of costumes seriously and most of the students showed up with only masks. For party activities it was decided that each person would take charge of one game or 'event.' We had bobbing for apples, pin the face on the Jack-o-lantern, mummy wrapping(mine), guess who I am (pin a name on someones back and they have to ask questions to figure out who they are) and scary story time... I also played some music and encouraged the students to dance, which was quite a challenge.

--- What's funny is that in China, everyone loves to sing and is encouraged to sing, even in public. Everyone sings and it very often I am asked to sing in class or at English corner. Even if the performer is awful, as I am, they feel no self consciousness and just belt it out. However, when I ask people of they like to dance, they say "no, I can't dance, I am embarrassed! I want to say "You can't sing either, but do it anyway!"---

Anyway, we foreigners had a great time and I believe that the students did as well... Although the Chinese Halloween experience was completely different from the last four I experienced at Akron, it was still a great time.... Whats odd is that I had never bobbed apples before coming to China... I found out that it is extremely difficult, but after holding my breath and dunking my head completely under the water to wedge the apple against the side of the basin, I was able to succeed!