A Charlie Brown special Halloween in China is not, however the festival’s flavour is undeniably in the air.
It seems every spot in town is putting together a Halloween party of some kind or another – with one bar being ambitious enough to force their staff to come to the foreign language area of SuDa and pimp their party to the Laowai.
I love Halloween, and I’ve more than once considered dressing up and going door to door here trick or treating for a laugh. However, fear always wins out in the end and I don’t go. Fear, not of the reactions it might invoke, but rather what sort of strange dried meat candies I might bring home.
However, on a high this week due to the visa thing, and wanting to prep Maggie for her looming submersion into Western culture, I found a “pumpkin” and we put the knife to it the other day.
It’s tiny (not much larger than a softball), it’s green, and it’s shriveling fast – but we have a Jack-o-Lantern – or 杰克哦灯笼 if you will.
Chinese Halloween Vocabulary
Wanting to brush up on some Chinese vocab to express the holiday, I searched around the net and couldn’t come up with much (Chinesepod, in rare form, let me down). So, here’s my attempt (please comment on any corrections or additions):
NOTE: Hover over the Chinese for the pīnyīn.
| 汉字 | English (in case it wasn’t clear) |
|---|---|
| 万圣节 | Halloween |
| 万圣节快乐 | Happy Halloween |
| 万圣节服装 | Halloween costume |
| 南瓜 | pumpkin |
| 南瓜灯 | Jack-o-Lantern (lit. pumpkin light) |
| 糖果 | candy |
| 诡计或者糖果 | Trick or Treat |
| 吸血鬼 | vampire |
| 女巫 | witch |
| 鬼魂 | ghost |
| 僵尸 | zombie |
| 木乃伊 | mummy |
| 科学怪人 | Frankenstein |
| 狼人 | werewolf / wolfman |
| 鬼屋 | haunted house |
| 鬼故事 | ghost story |
| 蝙蝠 | bat |
| 黑猫 | black cat |
| 乌鸦 | crow |
| 蜘蛛 | spider |
Now go wow the local Chinese with your 吓人的话. 万圣节快乐!
tranny fan: 
Yeeling: 
AJB: 
Ping Pong: 
ccddmj: 
Well, it’s always bothered me a little, but I know maybe I’m being too anal, but technically “万圣节” is All Saints Day, and Halloween should be translated as “万圣节前夕” (All Saints Day eve).
Hey Ryan,
Nice list, though for witch you have used the less common Chinese word for it. Another way to say it is “Wu Po”
Sorry I don’t know the correct characters but I often call my boss that so its well used.
So, is 万圣节前夕前夕 when we throw eggs at cars?
Dried meat candies, yuke!!!
Yay! When my wife was here last month, we received some mooncakes from a Chinese friend. Unfortunately, she got the one with dried meat filling. I think it was dried lamb or something. After that experience, she never tasted any of the other mooncakes left. Until now we still have a few boxes here.
Sadly, if the end of the sentence involves a kind of mooncake, then the start of the sentence is always “Unfortunately, …”
Keep them boxes around, handy when ponds freeze over and you start missin’ the NHL.
I think I’ll have to use some of these in class. I encouraged my class to show up in costume…but I won’t give them extra points. I wanted to dress as Elvis this year, but I’ll probably end up going as Chinese. I might even carry around my Chairman Mao doll.