“Trick or treat”, “trick or treat”, “trick or treat”, children wearing costumes shout and knock on the doors in their neighbourhood. Why are the children doing this? It’s because…they are celebrating the festival of Halloween, which takes place every October 31.
I believe many of you have heard of Halloween, but what exactly is the day all about? On this day, we always see decorations of pumpkins, sweets and skulls, while people in Macau and Hong Kong will also dress up as witches and wizards. But, what do they actually mean?
According to Kinghalloween.com, many Halloween symbols will fall into one of three major categories – symbols of the season and the harvest, symbols representing death and mortality and symbols representing misfortune or evil – each symbol indicating its own legend.
For example, the symbol of pumpkins with faces represents the legend of Jack O’Lantern. According to the MARCA website, legend has it that the devils had promised Jack, a farmer, never to take his soul, so when he died, his soul was left wandering on Earth. Since he could not enter heaven or hell because of the agreement with the devil, who provided him with an ember that would never stop burning to see where he was going. Upon receiving the ember, Jack stuffed it into one of his turnips and wandered aimlessly through the world. Therefore, based on the legend, the Irish and Scots “invented” Jack’s lantern, which consisted of making a turnip with Jack’s face on it and which was used to ward off the devil and evil spirits. The MARCA website said that when colonisation took place in America, other vegetables such as pumpkins were discovered and due to their abundance and harvest in the autumn, it was decided to change the vegetable and replace turnips with pumpkins. Hence, the pumpkin has become the more common symbol of Halloween.
Halloween has become well-known around the world and is being celebrated in both eastern and western regions and countries, including Macau and Hong Kong. With the widespread use of this special day, many children and adults take advantage of the occasion to dress up in special costumes, such as princesses, dinosaurs, bananas and even superman, to celebrate the day with their friends.
However, originally, Halloween costumes were traditionally modelled after figures such as vampires, ghosts, skeletons, scary-looking witches, and devils, according to Wikipedia, and the wearing of costumes at Halloween may come from the belief that supernatural beings, or souls of the dead, roamed the Earth on that particular day. Therefore, at the end of October, people wearing costumes of wizards, devils, ghosts or vampires supposedly join with the “supernatural beings” in the street to “treat or trick”.
According to Wikipedia, the word Halloween (“Saints’ evening”) is of Christian origin; a term equivalent to “All Hallows Eve” is attested in Old English. The word halloween comes from the Scottish form of All Hallows’ Eve (the evening before All Hallows’ Day); even is the Scots term for “eve” or “evening”, and is contracted to e’en or een; thereby, (All) Hallow(s) E(v)en became Hallowe’en.
Aside from the western “ghost festival”, there is also a “ghost festival” in Chinese, which the Chinese people call the “Zhongyuan Festival” or “Hungry Ghost Festival”, taking place on the 15th day of the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar. Similar to Halloween, also known as All Saints’ Eve, both festivals believe that the souls of the dead will come back to visit their relatives and friends from another world, such as heaven or hell.
Different to Halloween, when people go out on the night of this day to gather, during the Zhongyuan Festival, seniors always ask their children not to go out at night to prevent them blocking the way of the souls of the dead. However, with Halloween getting popular even in Chinese culture, the ghost month now seems to be more fun for kids than it was for children years ago.
So, tonight, how will you celebrate Halloween with your friends or family? Enjoy your “pumpkin day” but at the same time protect yourself well when having fun outside!
Last but not least, trick or treat?
Photo courtesy of Unsplash
