If you don't give me candy, I will do bad things to you, but they won't be with evil intentions!--Nina

We just had a wonderful Halloween here at Yongfeng. The weather was gorgeous, the kids were only slightly more energetic than usual (which means that they were their usual crazy selves), and everything was all-around adorable. I hope that everyone on the east coast has an equally great day, despite the weather. 

We mainly celebrated in art class, music class, and after school. In English, we learned important phrases like happy halloween, boo, witch (because that's what I dressed up as), and trick or treat. As you may have guessed from the title of this post, I translated trick or treat very eloquently as "if you don't give me candy, I will do bad things to you, but they won't be with evil intentions." There really isn't a quick way of saying it, but I'm pretty sure that was much more long-winded than was necessary. 

Although my translation was uh...poor, the kids definitely got the gist of what it meant. This first became clear at 7 AM when hoards of students began banging on my door. I was too out of it (asleep) to answer at first, but when I finally did, a group of 6th graders, wearing fangs and claws, shouted "TRICK OR TREAT!" in my face, then BOO!, and exploded a stink bomb outside of my doorway. It was great. (I'm not being sarcastic--I was very proud that they captured the essence of being a rowdy teenager on Halloween.) Things like this happened all day, with little groups of 4th and 6th graders trying their best to scare me. Usually I get startled very very easily, but, to be honest, they were quite bad at it. (For example, they tried hiding in the bushes, and as soon as I got closer, their look-out guy shouted, "TEACHER'S COMING!!!!")

This past week in art class, we've been making masks for the kids to wear today, which most of them did very proudly. By the end of the day (when we did our trick or treating festivities), it seemed as though most of the 1st graders and 2nd graders had lost them, but at least they got to enjoy them all morning. We also made paper-cut pumpkins and Halloweeny phrases this week to decorate our classroom and my door. 

My door, as decorated by the 6th graders

Sam, Paul, Jack, and Tyler with their art projects

The 4th and 6th graders' masks

In my music classes today, I showed the kids "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown," (shhh, it has good jazz music in it--it's relevant to music class) which was very well received, even though I thought that the high-pitched Chinese dubbing really took away from the dark humor of it. "I got a rock" was the highlight for Chinese children too. 

The best part of the day was giving out candy to the whole school. All of the other teachers at the school were really supportive and excited about this too, which was awesome. They helped us line up their classes to receive their candy, took pictures, and made sure everyone said "thank you" and/or "trick or treat." We also asked them to play music during our trick or treating party. They chose "I'm a big, big girl in a big, big world." Hm. A far cry from the Monster Mash of my childhood, but at least it was in English? 

The 1st graders doing what they do best--being confused and adorable

Fairy princess Abby giving out candy to the 2nd graders

Overly excited 3rd graders

The 4th graders seemed to be taking this too seriously. They also asked me why they couldn't have as many pieces of candy as they wanted, and why we didn't give them American chocolate. Well then....

5th grade! Look at the awesome unicorn mask in the second row. 

Billy, Paul, and Jack with their claws, fangs, and masks. If you were curious, their masks say: "boss ghost boss," "long live China," and "I've returned."

The beautiful 6th graders! Sadie is the bunny in the front. 

Happy Halloween!!