Halloween spreads around the world!

America's empire is unlike the Roman Empire or the British Empire in that America does not actually occupy the countries of its empire, but rather influences them through American culture. Here are a couple examples:
entertainment: movies/tv/music/sports
food: McDonald's/Coke/Snickers (all healthy, right?)
clothing: jeans/Crocs (ugh!)
holidays: Christmas and now... Halloween!

(editor's note: No, America didn't invent Christmas, but they've commercialized it more than anybody -- I prefer the German "version" of Christmas)

I've spent the last four Halloweens in four different countries and it's been interesting to see how the world is adopting the fun of Halloween. Here's where I've spent my last four Halloweens:
2008: Shanghai
2007: Tokyo
2006: Washington D.C.
2005: Salzburg, Austria

The three foreign countries that I have been in have all had promotions for Halloween activites, sales of Halloween candy, and local kids trick-or-treating.

Halloween is wildly popular in Hong Kong, due obviously in large part the the British occupation of the colony through 1997. During my MBA visit to Hong Kong in August, we had trips to and briefings from two amusement parks (Ocean Park and HK Disneyland) and they both mentioned that the Halloween Haunted Houses are one of the most popular times for people to visit the parks (and yes, learning business with these types of field trips if FUN!).

Halloween is in its infancy of popularity in Shanghai, but even still most of the big food stores had Halloween displays selling candy and costumes.

Adayla and Tally were Chinese princesses for Halloween, needless to say they were a big hit. Ryann was a leopard -- she would have been a big hit in any costume over here!

The day (and the pictures below) was divided up as follows:
- Adayla's kindergarten with her classmates
- Visiting Daddy's class and passing out candy
- Going trick-or-treating with friends

Adayla at Kindergarten outside of her class

Adayla with some of her classmates

and Adayla eating lunch when I picked her up...
(Editor's note: if your kids are picky eaters, just send them to a Chinese kindergarten. They eat everything... all sorts of vegetables, weird soups, fish served with the head and tail, etc. Adayla eats ANYTHING!)

Tally getting ready to go... not the best-framed picture, but it caught one of Tally's fun expressions. Sometimes when she gets excited, she cracks a smile and then looks side-to-side before bursting out with joy. She's just cute.

On to Daddy's school:

As we imagined, we got mobbed when we got out of the taxi with the girls dressed up. We allowed a couple of minutes for pictures before going to the classroom.

This picture makes me laugh... this gal couldn't get enough of the girls or of Morgan! For a brief moment (right as I took the picture) I thought she may even hurt Morgan... that's a nice headlock don't you think?

We may have confused my classmates about Halloween -- they may now think that kids get dressed up and go around to give adults candy!
The girls loved giving away candy, but Adayla made them say "Tao Tang" (trick-or-treat in Chinese) before she gave them any candy.

Extreme close-ups:

Then it was time for my classmates to get their pictures with the girls!

Here's what the girls handed out: Skittles and M&Ms. Who needs "Pricing Policy" anyway... our girls are priceless!

For lunch I suggested to a couple of friends that we try a new Mexican restaurant right outside of campus. For all the weird and various things that the Chinese eat, they are surprisingly hesitant to try non-Chinese food. I was surprised when not only did a couple of people say yes, but I ended up leading 15 of my classmates to the restaurant. I really hoped that the food would be good and it was... it was really good actually! I'll have to take Morgan here soon.

What's this have to do with Halloween? Well, the restaurant is all decorated in Halloween motif. Again, Halloween is catching on here...

Then in the evening it was time for Trick-or-Treating!

I actually think the red-eyes help to make Ryann look more like a leopard

One more fun thing about Halloween in Shanghai? Ayis! See the lady handing out the candy in this picture? That's not the family that lives there, but their Ayi (maid). Every house had the Ayi handing out candy freeing up both parents to escort their kids in trick-or-treating. Yet another benefit of having an Ayi!