Halloween in Japan

I didn't know the Japanese necessary to explain my outfit to those who saw me en route to Geruma school in the morning. When I exited the speedboat at Aka I passed by the school superintendent and he did not look amused. Indeed, he was not. Later in the afternoon I had to visit the Board of Education and the gesturing used to describe the superintendent when he arrived at work was either steam coming out of his ears or devil horns growing out of his head. I hoped for the latter to be in keeping with the holiday.

We had a Halloween party at Geruma that involved a history of Halloween read by me and translated by the junior high students, a janken (rock, paper, scissors) game, and then trick-or-treating to the 3 elementary classrooms and me in two bathrooms (each gender, respectively). My JTE (Japanese Teacher of English), Ayano, and I provided masks to all the students except kindergarten because they had made their own.

When I arrived back in Zamami it didn't take long for the 1st/2nd grade elementary students to discover me. I used their herding formation to help offset the surprise that adults found at my appearance. The little kids quickly perfected saying 'trick-or-treat' and I soon had to limit their candy intake to make sure I saved some for the junior high party at 5:30pm.

The Zamami Halloween party was organized by the JTE (Shizuko) and some of the junior high students. The lack of costume participation was compensated by the fantastic female costumes that two of the boys wore. I made sure to give them extra candy and prizes. We played Bingo and did a mini trick-or-treat, as well as voting on the best jack-o-lantern drawing (real pumpkins are hard to come by) and the best costume.

Holidays tend to have a theme of being a lot more work than they're worth to me (and a lot more materialism than is healthy). I am yet to determine if the fallout from the superintendent's disgust in my costume was offset by the elation of all the kids and teachers. I hope so because I don't need any more reasons to turn my lip up at holidays.

Today a remnant of my costume remains in the pink nail polish. Time to find a real woman for some remover.