Sun, Oct 31, 2004 page12

• Asia displays a newfound embrace of Halloween

  The holiday is a perfect fit with Asia's love of the supernatural, say analysts - but also its worship of Mammon

  • AFP
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  It's not cheap making a Jack O-Lantern in Hong Kong, where Halloween pumpkins have to be imported from Japan and are priced at more than HK$1,000 (US$128).

  But that is not stopping festival-mad Hong Kongers from shelling out fortunes ahead of this weekend's Halloween festivities for a vegetable that until 10 years ago few here knew even existed.

  "People here really go for Halloween, I think, because it's new: it may be an old tradition elsewhere but here, it's still a novelty," said Maggie Chu, membership manager of KEE, a chic downtown club that like other bars in the city is pulling out all the stops for what is a peculiarly Western festival.

  Hong Kong and much of developed Asia has taken to Halloween on Oct. 31 in a way they haven't for most other Western traditions.

  Not even Christmas, which offers two days of public holiday here, gets people as excited as this.

  Bars have been festooned with cobwebs, skeletons and other spooky paraphernalia for two weeks and restaurants are already serving up ghoulishly themed suppers for the big day.

  All-night parties have been part of the Halloween party scene in Hong Kong's central nightlife area Lan Kwai Fong for at least five years and police consider it one of the biggest crowd-control events of the year.

  In Tokyo young revellers are expected to take part in what has become an annual ad hoc Halloween hoot -- to dress up in witchy weeds and spend all night partying on the circular Yamanote Line subway train.

  And in the Philippines' central island of Panay, the government of Roxas City is preparing to hold a two-day horror-themed festival that capitalizes on the island's reputation as a home of entrail-eating ghouls called Aswang, the local equivalent of the bogeyman.

  The appeal of Halloween to Asia is manyfold, says Nury Vittachi, a Hong Kong-based commentator and defiantly proud Asian.

  "Asian people love to dress up and they don't get the chance in their own festivals," said Vittachi. "It's a chance for young people to go out an have a good time."

  But more importantly, he says, Asians can relate to the festival because of its historical links to the supernatural.

  All Hallow's Eve, as it once was called, stems from Celtic culture from throughout Britain, Ireland and France, and marks the dark night in which winter begins and the boundary blurs between the living and dead.

  To ward off evil spirits, villagers wore masks. To lure good spirits, they offered tasty treats and sacrificed animals in their honor.

  The Druid rites of Samhain, their new year, also melded over time with the Celtic rites.

  Christianity tried to wipe out the Pagan festivities in the eighth century by building atop of it. All Saints' Day, on Nov. 1, is still observed in many Catholic countries. Vittachi says modern Asia's continued embrace of the supernatural in its many religions means it has a receptive ear to the ghostly associations of Halloween.

  "Asians are not as sceptical about the supernatural as Westerners because many of their religions revere the dead and in fact perform ceremonies for the dead," he said.

  Among such traditional Asian veneration of the dead is the Chinese Yue Lan festival, held in August and September, and often called the Hungry Ghosts festival.

  During the month-long observance, spirits are placated with offerings at temples of fruit and food.

  "It is far easier for Asians to get into Halloween ... because a belief in the supernatural has a greater presence than in the West," Vittachi said.

  Sceptics suggest Halloween's popularity in the region is born of something more base and more omnipresent in developed Asian society -- business opportunism.

  "You see the shops and the department stores all holding Halloween events and promotions, well, they are only adopting it to sell things," said Chu, whose KEE club is charging a ghoulishly festive premium entry fee of HK$666 for the night.

  "It's only for the younger people -- you won't see any older Chinese people doing anything on Halloween night."

  Most think there is little wrong in making a few dollars out of the event and see it positively as a unifying embrace of other cultures.

  "It's just an excuse to go crazy, to really have a great time," said Greg Derham, the flamboyant owner of House of Siren, a costume hire and party-organizing company.

  The company is providing the models and tinsel for high-class champagne maker Veuve Clicquot's glittering Yelloween Halloween party on a huge junk moored in the city's southern harbor.

  "We have to turn business away every year because we are so busy -- it's absolutely crazy," Derham said. "But there just aren't the opportunities for people to really go to town and dress up like there is at Halloween.

  "That's why everybody wants their party then."
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