my first writing assignment for city weekend was to write a piece on the top five places to find halloween costumes in the city. it really made me appreciate how much easier it is to get things like that done in a country where everyone speaks english. not only that, but chinese people don't even know what halloween is, making it very difficult to communicate that you are looking for halloween costumes. i did manage to find five places, although some of them were stalls in clothing markets that seemed to sell witch and ghost masks on a whim, without really having an idea what they're meant for.
another interesting thing i came across on my journey was a "Nightmare Before Christmas" store. Yes, we all thought the Nightmare Before Christmas was a thing of the past, a movie that came out when we were pretty young, and the occasional whim to watch it notwithstanding, it has receded from our lives. i guess this is not so in china. the entire store was filled with nightmare before christmas products- shirts, bags, and posters. i simply cannot imagine why someone, when pondering the theme for their store, would decide that the nightmare before christmas is the one to go with. but more power to ya.
my search for halloween stores also brought me out to shunyi, a district by the Beijing airport. i find shunyi fascinating, because it is the closest thing you'll find to american suburbia without actually being in america. and really, when you're there, you sort of forget you're not in america. the people who live there have decided that although they have chosen to live in china, they would not actually like to have to live in china. this really seems odd to me; its not like i'm a nazi about living out the chinese experience, but even in the middle of the city you can still have some of the comforts of home. it just seems like you must really have to hate china to decide to close yourself off from it that much. but i guess, live and let live.