万圣节快乐—Wanshengjie Kuaile, DHS! Halloween came early to one Darien neighborhood this fall. On Wednesday, October 5th, residents of Patricia Lane, Thomasina Lane, and DuBois Street staged a full-on mock Halloween celebration for the town’s visiting Chinese Exchange students.
These Chinese students and their hosts gathered at senior Sarah Terhune’s Patricia Lane home early that evening. A casual bystander would have had a tough time believing it wasn’t October 31st.
The Terhune’s front yard was decked out in seasonal decorations, including cobwebs, mummies, spiders, and even a talking, moving, light-up skeleton. The Halloween atmosphere was completed by a row of a dozen pumpkins, each one freshly carved by a different host/exchange-student pair.
Host families raided their closets a good three weeks early to provide suitable costumes for their exchange students. The Chinese students looked the part of authentic trick-or-treaters, sporting clever disguises of all varieties. Some chose classics like devils, witches, wizards, and pirates. Others went outrageous, like ___, who wore an inflatable Ghostbusters’ Stay-Puff-Marshmallow-Man suit. ___, hosted by ___, might have had the most creative costume. She wore a pink shirt, floral shorts, and a cone-head and called herself Patrick Star. In case you were wondering, none of the Chinese students had ever heard of Ghostbusters, but had all of them knew and loved SpongeBob.
After learning to say the magic words trick-or-treat, the students broke up into small groups and began trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. This eclectic mix of Chinese students, American teenagers, school advisors, parents, and opportunistic neighborhood kids stopped at 20 local houses that had agreed to participate in the evening. Of course, each stop along the way, the trick-or-treaters filled their sacks with plenty of authentic American Halloween candy. The evening definitely pushed boundaries for the Chinese students. Host mom and evening organizer Linda Terhune explained how in China, “you just don’t ever dress up like that. It’s not part of their culture to do something so extravagant.” She described how her family’s exchange daughter, Ocean, felt uncomfortable putting makeup on for her Witch costume because she was concerned about what her teacher would think.
Another Chinese student, when asked if she and her friends socialized like this often, responded “we don’t go out like this. We are not allowed to stay out late (past eight or nine PM).”
Despite these cultural differences, the Chinese students evidently had a great time. Mrs. Terhune described the atmosphere as “jubilant.” The students were even treated to a full-scale pasta dinner—Sarah’s idea—and allowed to hang out in an American back yard until well past sundown.
From the pumpkins to the costumes to the food and candy to the relaxed nature of the evening, the Chinese students certainly got a great taste of American culture. The evening was a huge success by any measure.
Mrs. Terhune and Thomasina Lane resident Mrs. Christiansen got the idea to organize this mock Halloween at a China Exchange parents meeting. Apparently, the Markham family hosted a similar gathering for last year’s China Exchange group, but on a smaller scale.
These two women decided to get the whole neighborhood involved this time. They e-mailed houses on their respective blocks, hoping that a couple would be prepared to give each of the dozen-or-so students a piece of candy when they went knocking on doors. The response Mrs. Terhune and Mrs. Christiansen got was much more enthusiastic than they could have hoped for, and overwhelmingly warm.
The neighborhood was fully prepared for the evening—no lame, empty houses with take one bowls on the doorstep. Many of the residents giving out candy were dressed in costume for the occasion. Some houses were even fully decorated with tombstones, caution tape, and other spooky furnishings.
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Neighbors seemed to enjoy opening their houses to the Chinese students. Patricia Lane resident Kathleen Finnegan put it this way: “It was nice to see all the houses decorated so early, and it was fun to see highschoolers being silly and having such a good time.”
Moral of the story: if you don’t like the date a holiday falls on, change it.
