Boo? Bu

Most of the time in China if you want to say an especially foreign word or proper noun, like a brand name, celebrity, or place, you can approximate it in Chinese sounds and it is often right (there are official transliterations for almost everything) Example: ka-bu-ji-nuo=cappuccino, ta-mu-han-ke-si=Tom Hanks, fu-luo-li-da=Florida. Sometimes we can guess, but luckily I remembered this dangerous exception before using it yesterday; you can get a really close approximation to “Halloween”; ha-luo-yin, but this word does not mean a holiday where kids wear scary outfits and beg for candy; it means “heroin”. Yes, that was a word I learned over the summer (For anyone who’s curious, an-fei-ta-min is amphetamine). The word for Halloween is not transliterated, and is something like “Spirits Holiday”.

I read somewhere that a bar in town was having pumpkin carving and spiced wine, which sounded like a fun and relaxed thing to do, and several friends had planned to go. I invited my roommate, who on hearing the word “pumpkin” knew exactly what I was talking about and was eager to go. I set about figuring out whether or not I could put together a costume, settling finally on a candy corn, wearing various layers of white yellow and orange over a red skirt. The outfit was big and not really recognizable as candy corn, and about five minutes before walking out the door I changed into some rolled up jeans, threw a belt over my white shirt, took off one earring, tied my hair in a scarf and became a pirate instead.

Unfortunately when we got to the bar it was just a bar with lots of foreigners in strange clothes, and especially since my roommate isn’t big on the bar scene and I was in the mood for something calmer, I bought her a coke and me a beer, and we hung around but left about an hour later when things started getting rowdy. It was actually a really fun night, explaining to Xiaojun about Halloween and chatting with her and my friends. When we got back, since she’d let me pay for the cab and drinks, Xiaojun took me across the street for some midnight snacks: Sichuan barbecue (spicy grilled veggie kebabs), and some bready things. The snack was excellent, partly because for dinner I’d finished off the peanut butter and crackers I’d treated myself to and had a few handfuls of Xinjiang raisins, and we had some excellent roommate bonding time.