This past Saturday was, finally, HALLOWEEN! After having a less than successful first Halloween in China last year (being without a passport/homeless for a night, losing my cell phone on a bus, and various other adventures) I was determined that this year would be semi-functional.
And for the most part, it was! Rather than wandering around Chengdu dressed as a Pokemon trainer with a bare midriff by myself, I spent Halloween dressed up as Jurassic World characters with two other teachers. In an unfortunate iPhone update, almost all of our pictures from the night were deleted, but our costumes were legit. Halloween is not the time for half assing an outfit.
PLOT TWIST: I was NOT a dinosaur AND wore heels AND I actually covered my midriff, despite how empowered a crop top makes me feel. I was Claire Dearing, the woman who has replaced any male interaction with running a dinosaur theme park (goals) while the others dressed as Owen Grady, aka Chris Pratt, and a velociraptor. We were a solid squad.
Fun fact: I saw Jurassic World three times in theaters because dinosaur theme park.
Unfortunately, dressing in full on costumes has just not caught on in China. Bummer. 90% of the other bar biddies and dudes were in regular club attire, but with fake scars or blood on the side of their faces. Such blood. Much scary. Not wow.
We spent our night between two bar/clubs in Chengdu, people watching, dancing, and for me, trying not to twist my ankles in heels purchased specifically for my costume. I committed.
The club scene in Chengdu is….different and worthy of a separate blog post. I will go ahead and say that 1) most people do not dance 2) people who DO dance are doing something closer to swaying back and forth 3) I do not understand how someone could possibly take themselves seriously after inhaling laughing gas through a balloon in a club. Since when is that a thing, someone help me please.
Eventually we made it back to our hostel, even though I had to take off my heels for the last part of the night. It was not the epic, raging, crazy party someone might picture for a city of 13 million people, but it was still Halloween. Halloween hasn’t quite caught on in China yet, but that’s OK. In the meantime, I’ll still be dressing up, probably not in heels though, whenever there’s a decent excuse!
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