2 November 2012
Birthdays, Halloween, All Saint’s Day
I. Birthdays
On Wednesday,
October 30, we walked back to our apartment in the afternoon and found a big
birthday party going on in the open space in front of our building. Turns out
it was one of our neighbor’s 4th birthday party and lots of children
were out to celebrate. Since it was the day before Halloween, many of them were
dressed up in costume. |
| Birthday girl on the right |
As wementioned before, the custom here is to give away food on birthdays so Grace
and I were offered a plate of pancit and spaghetti as we walked past. We went up
to our apartment to get a Snicker’s bar as a gift and to grab a camera. When we
went back down the kids were starting to play a game with a flower-pot piñata.
After several children tried to wallop the pot with a baseball bat (including the birthday girl) one finally
succeeded, sending ceramic shards and candy flying all over the place. This is apparently a common birthday game. We left
after this but the party continued on for a while longer.  |
| evening sky after birthday party |
II. Halloween
We had asked our
friend Irene (who sells tasty turon and other foods outside our building) if
there was going to be trick or treating for Halloween and she said to come down
at 6:00. Grace and the Irish VRA in our building each bought a small bag of
candy to prepare. Around 5:00 it started storming quite heavily and we actually
lost power around 5:30. Given the weather, we were told that trick or treating
was cancelled for the night but that they’d try again the next day.
So, on the
evening of November 1 we got ready, looking forward to seeing what trick or
treating was like in our neighborhood. Our Irish friend had purchased a small
mask at a store and I had bought a pair of giant sunglasses. At 6:00 Grace and
I went out of our apartment to walk down to our friend’s room on the second
floor. When we looked down, though, we saw that there was a line of 30 to 40
children lined up at our building’s door, whispering something about “Fritz,
Grace, …” We immediately panicked, realizing that “trick or treating” actually
meant that everyone in the neighborhood was just expecting us to give them
candy. We didn’t think we had enough to satisfy everyone so we combined candy
with our friend and cautiously made our way down to meet the mass of kids. It
ended up being pretty hilarious because the evening was basically a chance for
children to get candy from us (which I guess isn’t really that different from
Halloween in the U.S.). Only one or two were wearing a costume and the line
ended up becoming a circle, with kids returning over and over again until all
of our candy ran out. It was a little overwhelming at first but we had a good laugh
about it afterwards. Unfortunately, it was too dark to get any photos.
III. All Saint’s Day
November 1, or
All Saint’s Day, is a huge holiday here. Most things in the city were shut down
yesterday and today. The tradition here is for families to go out to cemeteries
for the day to have a picnic on the gravesite of their relatives. Since we overlook
a big cemetery we were able to watch people preparing for the day for the whole
week. Lots of people set up tents to block the sun and flower shops sprang up
all over the neighborhood. Several people warned us that there could be fights
in the afternoon and evening because of drunken family arguments so we went out
for a 45-minute walk at about 8:00am. Loyola Memorial was hopping. There were
all sorts of food stands set up featuring the most common fast food restaurants
such as Jollibee, KFC, and various pizza places. It felt like a big picnic
ground except that it was also a cemetery. It looks like many people are also
out today, too. There was a holiday last Friday, too, so we’re just looking
forward to next week when hopefully the pool will be open all week. 
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