little monsters

(2nd-3rd/11/2013)

Location: Chengdu, Sichuan Province

 

'Things you see at Halloween? Monster, vampire, ghost...sexy nurse!'

                                                                                                                              -Student quote of the week

It's dark and stormy outside, with a cold breeze and a slate grey sky that promises rain. I've forgotten my coat, my phone battery is about to die and I'm in an aboveground tomb.

 

It can only be Halloween.

 

At the university it's been another interesting week of teaching. My second years, (having already covered Halloween in their first year) think they know everything and are in a silly mood. The lesson begins to slip from my fingers so I switch tactics and turn off the lights.

 

Several scary film trailers later, they're still young and innocent enough to be cowering in their seats, hands splayed over their faces, peering nervously through their fingers as ghosts, monsters and possessed victims appear and disappear off screen. I flick the lights back on and grin at my students, who stare back at me, cowed and unsure what I'm going to subject them to next.

 

Back in control, we watch and discuss Michael Jackson's Thriller. I split them into groups and get them to pretend to be news reporters investigating paranormal sightings at the University, interviewing students. The acting and conviction varies from group to group, but my last class perform spectacularly well- one group of six even re-enacting the abduction and consumption of a student by a monster. It's hilarious and just a tad gruesome, which means the students find it great fun- especially the boys who sometimes have difficulty focussing in lessons.

 

Halloween also means the start of my dealings with a new set of little monsters- my classes at Enoch International Kindergarten begin this week. I go prepared for a lesson on colours, big, bright pieces of multicoloured card clutched under my arms for the kids to jump on, handmade flashcards in my bag...and walk into the kindergarten to find forty under five year olds dancing along to Gangnam Style.  
 
Apparently they're rehearsing for a Halloween party.

 

My lesson on colours promptly cancelled, I instead get to lend a hand doing the actions to Incy-Wincy Spider and If You're Happy and You Know It. I throw balled up pieces of newspaper at Styrofoam skeletons and fill my pockets full of sweets ready to give to the children that evening. The parents turn up promptly at five thirty and watch their offspring strut down a makeshift catwalk in their Halloween costumes. There are robots and witches, wolves, monsters and princesses. One little boy is dressed as a duck. Words fail to express how adorable he looks.

 

The children perform their dances, destroy the skeletons and finish the evening by going on a treasure hunt in the play-area, before politely asking their teachers for sweets as they have been taught.

 

'Teacher! Give me candy!'

The weekend arrives unexpectedly quickly. The weather becomes grim and my plan to escape Chengdu is hastily shelved, the prospect of an hour's bus journey to a deserted ancient town damp with rain and choked with mud, an uninviting one. Instead I stay and see some of the things I haven't managed to get around to.

I go back to Jinli Street at night, the pathways lit up prettily with thin, red paper lanterns. I visit Big and Small Alley, two long streets full of expensive, interesting shops and restaurants, where you can buy a hot chocolate and watch victims have the wax removed from their ears by experts wearing headlamps and wielding tools that once belonged to Edward Scissorhands.

I visit People's Park and watch the dozens of people rowing their boats on the lake in circles, trying to avoid each other. It's rather like watching several sharks swim around your bathtub- there's not enough room and someone's going to get hurt but you can't look away. As I'm watching from my quiet, lakeside bench, three cleaners appear from the corner of my eye and decide now is the perfect opportunity to clean the area around my bench. Only my bench. No-one elses. Two more appear from the trees behind. A sixth slowly circles in from the front. I'm reminded uncomfortably of Thriller and make a quick exit.

 

And now I'm in a tomb. Technically it's the only aboveground tomb to be excavated in China and it belongs to Wangjian, the Emperor of Former Shu in Five Dynasties (847-918 AD). Like most tombs it was robbed of its treasures over time, and now only the stone coffin remains with twelve warriors on each side bracing it on their shoulders. Along the sides of the coffin are twenty four people playing musical instruments and at the end of the tomb is a statue of the man himself, seated in a chair and residing over his own half shadowed resting place for all eternity.

 

I'm not sure what creeps me out more- the poorly lit tomb with it's shadows and stone faces or the man I saw earlier having six inch needles thrust down his ears to remove the wax.

 

I end my weekend by meeting my friends for hotpot at a new restaurant near the Tibetan quarter. Successfully navigating the menu via the only English speaking waitress in the establishment we wait and watch as the bowls of spicy oil are brought to the table and gently heated. The liquid bubbles. And then from the depths of the bowl comes a dead fish. A whole fish with eyes and scales and there it is, floating around belly up in the bubbling sauce. One of my friends, R, announces she will be sick.

 

There is a quick conference around the table. The fish cannot be left in the bowl and so the poor dead creature is hastily scooped out. Now there is a new dilemma. There are no bowls or plates or dishes on the table. Nothing to put the fish on. Our only option is to squash it into the only free receptacle on the table... the napkin holder.

 

The fish stares at us with an expression I can only describe as depressed.

 

'Fú wù yuán,' I beckon the waitress over and present her with the dead fish awkwardly wedged in the napkin tray. 'Búyào. We don't want this.'

 

She looks at the dead fish I am presenting her with and then at our group. We repeat ourselves and make removing motions. Both the waitress and the fish look unimpressed.

 

Another waitress joins her and together they look at the fish squeezed clumsily into the napkin dispenser. There is a brief flurry of Chinese and eventually the waitress sighs, nods and carries it away.

 

We turn back to the still bubbling bowl. No-one volunteers to stir it again. Gingerly G pokes a long handled spoon into the bowl to check nothing else will float up at us.

 

It's Halloween and it's China.

 

Anything could be in there.