November 5, 2017

This week, we start with sharing what Halloween is like in Shanghai. A few stores or sidewalk shops decorate for Halloween, but we've only seen this in areas where lots of foreigners shop, not in our local neighborhood. I don't think the adults pay it any attention. The students, on the other hand, are quite interested. Our English Corner (Tuesday evenings) had lots of questions, including wanting to know more about the pumpkin "masks," like they think we put the pumpkins on our heads. We even saw an advertisement with pumpkin-head people, but not with faces on them.

 

Sidewalk vendors in an international area
decorated for Halloween.  We saw Chinese people
taking pictures of the decorations.  But then, so were we.

Carving the pumpkin (the biggest one we could find).

A week before Halloween, we carved a Jack O'lantern and took it to our English Corner. What a hit! There are a lot of questions about Halloween and there were several parties on campus Halloween night, but it seems they haven't actually seen a real pumpkin carved. There are the plastic pumpkin-shaped buckets in a few stores (mostly expat shopping places), but not many pumpkins, none that have any size, and certainly none that they just carve up. They really can't understand wasting a pumpkin that could be eaten, I think.

The finished pumpkin and some of our English Corner officers.

On Halloween night we went to a party that was for the English Club officers of three Universities. Probably 100 students there in a hotel ballroom. And we decided to dress up, but coming up with costume ideas was a challenge. We don't have a second hand shop nearby (if they have those), no costume type places, and we didn't bring anything. So we decided to be "mummies." We bought a cheap sheet and cut it into strips. We also got our tailor (more about that below) to donate 2 meters of white cloth (more strips). And on Halloween night, started costuming, with the help of the couple we teach with.

We have about a mile walk to the subway, and we were the only people on the street in costume. Many stares. We met our English Club officers at the subway. They were amazed - both at the costumes and that we would wear them in public. They put theirs on at the party. We were the only ones in costume on the subway. And the only ones (except for a few kids) at the mall we had to walk through to get to the hotel.

 

John on the subway.

Kathy at the subway waiting for a train.

Then we got to the party - and were the center of attention. They don't do costumes like this. Most had a witch hat, devil horns, or masquerade mask. Maybe face painted werewolf scratches or a cape. Nearly every student wanted a picture with us!

We had a hard time holding our costumes together for the
whole night! And we taxied home. With a chuckling driver.

On another subject, a major opportunity here - and in many Asian countries - is to get tailored clothes.  One can get two suits custom tailored for less than the cost of a single "bargain" suit in the USA.  Same for women's clothes.  There is a "soft material mall" here that is a three story building filled with shops that do this.  We were referred to "Kate and Kevin."  Kate runs the shop and Kevin is the tailor.  They are very popular with many expats, because they do good work and she speaks English so well.  This is a great advantage for discussing clothing style and fabric options. John got a couple of suits and two shirts made.  Kathy took in one of her favorite skirts and had them make two "copies" in other colors. 

One of the aisles of the Soft Materials Mall.  Every few feet is a stall of one tailor, each stall about 10' wide. It's coat season!

The funniest part of all this was when we went back to try on our clothes.  We find the Chinese people are very direct and say what they think.  When John tried on his suit, Kate told him it makes his belly not look so big.  The Ansteads (the other BYU teachers at Tongji Univ.) went, too, and also got clothes.  When Clay tried on his suit, the slacks didn't fit quite right in the front, so they needed to redo the pants to fit right.  As he went back towards the fitting room to take them off, Kate (30 something) told Clay (just turned 60) that "your butt looks nice" meaning they fit well in the back...

Looking at the chandelier and
some of the levels above.

We decided we needed to go back and check out the mall we walked through to get to the Halloween party, so returned Friday night for dinner and to check out the mall.  Wow!  What a mall!  9 Levels of mall, with two of them dedicated to food.  Everything you can image in clothing, sportswear, accessories, and jewelry.  Authentic American items were VERY expensive - Lee jeans were over $200 USD.  There were gold necklaces at $10,000 and up.  And a movie theater, fitness center, spa, video arcade and much more.  Every kind of food you can image, from Subway, KFC, and Pizza Hut to noodles, dumplings, hot pots, sushi and American Angus steaks!  And a grocery store. 

Looking down at the escalators
from the above.

View of part the grocery store
from the level above.

The adventure continues!