Halloween 2019

I went to a Halloween party Saturday night. Halloween was actually on Thursday, but Saturday is a much better day for a party. Especially if you want people to show up.

This was my first real Halloween since 2015. I was in Barcelona last year. I had a nice Thanksgiving dinner in Barcelona, but there was no Halloween to be found. I'm sure there was something somewhere, but I never knew about it. Halloween 2017 was a month after the car accident, so no parties for me. I was in Tel Aviv in 2016. They know how to party in Tel Aviv, but it never felt anything like Halloween. They have their own holiday, Purim, which is a lot like Halloween with religious overtones, but that is usually in February/March. The last time I was in Hong Kong and fully functional on Halloween was 2015. I think that was the year I dressed up as Wendy. Lily was Colonel Sanders and Kevin was Ronald McDonald. No one got it. Everyone recognized Ronald, but they were confused by a female colonel and it probably did not help that there is no Wendy's in Hong Kong.

Past parties in Hong Kong were always what I would consider a Halloween party. Everyone dressed in costume, mostly zombies and pirates, or superheroes in later years, and there was a fair amount of alcohol. There is no trick or treating in Hong Kong, but candy is plentiful. This year was different. Almost no one wore a costume, and those who did put no effort into it. One person had a Guy Fawkes mask, even though no one I talked to knew who Guy Fawkes was or why his mask is used during government protests. I don't think they teach British history in Hong Kong schools as much as they used to. They probably think China is more important to Chinese people. Crazy.

Like most of the guests, I wore regular clothes. Just the idea of putting something together and getting dressed up to go somewhere that would be too hot when crowded with people was not appealing to me. October in Hong Kong is practically summer. I also drank much less than at previous parties, in the sense that I drank no alcohol at all. I have never been a fall down drunk, but I have been known to enjoy a drink or two, situationally. No one else got drunk, that I know of. It was all very sophisticated, or at least as sophisticated as a Halloween party on a Saturday night is going to get. I don't know what happened to us. I think somewhere along the line, maybe when all of our backs were turned, we got older. Next year we might be in formal gowns and sipping champagne.