A Hellish Thought

Despite any impression I may sometimes give to the contrary, I am largely in favor of U.S. imports. The albums of Mose Allison, premium cranberry cocktail mixer, the ramblings of William Burroughs—what would an autumn evening be without these estimable American things? But if there’s one Stateside import that turns me into a militant anti-imperialist, howling Yanquis afuera! with every ardent air punch, it’s the modern Halloween. And I thought—while many of my compatriots are still emerging from the malady brought on by too many Vampirtinis or Zombipolitans or whatever last night—that today would be a good time for us to form a circle, bow our heads in reflection and ask: why Halloween, here, in Hong Kong?
Readers not from Hong Kong need to know that Halloween is locally celebrated with such ardor that that entire city, come October 31, looks like a scene from 28 Days. Take the gym near Time Asia’s office. Members were obliged to exit the elevators through lurid drapes of black and orange taffeta, before collecting towels from a counter littered with plastic spiders, for an entire month before the festival. The management of my apartment building, with similar forethought, had a bloodied rubber hand lying on the notice board, and assorted ghoulish tat strewn around the lobby, for weeks. At the start of this week, I passed a couple of office workers wearing bat’s wings and witch’s hats with flashing lights—at lunchtime.
If Halloween is your tradition, then by all means celebrate it—I don’t want to spoil your party. I merely wonder why Hong Kong people need to celebrate it. After all, we have our own traditional festival of the dead (it’s called the Hungry Ghost Festival and falls a few weeks before Halloween). But this isn’t even about culture. This is about the environment—about waste that’s being created where it never was before. When I was young, nobody in China knew what Halloween was, never mind dressed up for it. I remember being 7 or 8, and being forbidden by my parents from going trick-or-treating, because they were worried the neighbors would think I was begging. These days, think of all the tons of plastic witch’s hats, vampire teeth, eyeballs, amputated fingers, black capes, themed decorations, retail displays and posters, glow-in-the-dark bits and pieces, monster mugs and other tawdry dross that must be manufactured, all because millions of people have caught on, and now find it mildly amusing to celebrate Halloween. Do the carbon emission calculations on that lot, be amazed at all the zeros, and then sit back and think of how bad things will get when this festival really takes hold in China. Now that’s horror.