Every year the HNC
student committee (banwei) organizes a Halloween party. What is it like to plan a Halloween party in China? Read on to hear more about the festivities from our student blogger,
Chelsea.
Hi Everyone!
It’s been a while but,
BOO!
Did I scare you? (Probably not…)
Recently the Hopkin Nanjing Center’s student committee
hosted our annual Halloween Party—this year’s highlights were carnival games,
student DJs, a costume contest, a student murder mystery play, and our very own
HNC boy band, Chuanerzard (they were going for a combo of chuan 串,
a popular kabob snack, and Charizard, the Pokémon-nerds in the best of ways)!
As a member of the student committee I can give you a quick scoop
on all of the prep and fun events we had leading up to the big day!
To kick-off the start of October we hosted a series of
Halloween movies on Friday nights in the student lounge. Anyone a fan of Hocus
Pocus, Halloweentown, or the Shining? Before screening Hocus Pocus, I gave a
mini-lecture to the Chinese students about the history of Halloween and how it
came to be so popular in America. We also had the American international
students help Chinese students brainstorm what costumes they should wear. We also
started asking students to volunteer at the party, and everyone was pretty
supportive.
While most of our Halloween events are for HNC students
only, the Halloween party is always open to students from other universities in
Nanjing who can buy tickets to attend.
To advertise the party, Janey (the Chinese female
representative of the student committee) and I made a poster and started
promoting the event to both Chinese and foreign students on Nanjing University’s
campus. It was a lot of work, but in the end we had almost 400 people attend the party! The party is also a really great way also to meet non-HNC
students from around the world and China.
In the midst of presentations, papers and projects, we also
held a pumpkin-carving competition! Although we got all of the pumpkins from
Taobao instead of a pumpkin patch, the Chinese students were still really excited
to carve them for the first time. Everyone was starting to get into the
Halloween spirit with some classic Halloween party music while decorating the HNC.
Coordinating Taobao deliveries and organizing the events for
the night was a lot of work, but in the end it paid off! Come Halloween, the
HNC was spooky and ready for ghouls and ghosts of all kinds.
Halloween was a lot of fun and I was glad to finally be able
to share an American holiday with the students at the HNC.
I have more papers and presentations coming up, but look
forward for posts on the upcoming Thanksgiving Fall Break and my favorite
places around HNC!
Catch you all soon!
Written by Chelsea Toczauer, MAIS Student
