There are so many things that I still haven't shared with you all, but seeing that Halloween is just around the corner, it seems appropriate that I tell you about our Halloween party.  You might think that we've really lost touch with the days since I said that we had our Halloween party already, but let me explain.  Tomorrow we will be leaving for our two week tour of China which will include the cities of Beijing, Xian and Lhasa.  Even though we would be away from campus on the holiday, we didn't want to miss the opportunity to have a Halloween party.

Up to now, we have been shown the greatest of hospitality and we thought it would be nice to return the favor in some small way.  It may not be much, but we thought we could show everyone a good time by hosting a costume party complete with some traditional Halloween activities.

As part of the leadership course each of the students has to perform some form of leadership function so Andy took it upon himself to organize all the activities.  It didn't take much convincing to get Lena's cooperation, especially since she was also chomping at the bit to take charge of this one.  Her contribution was the most difficult, but I also think the most fun.  She decided that she wanted a piñata.  When we asked several of the Chinese students if they knew what a piñata was they just gave a blank stare, so we knew that this would be an exciting event for them.  Andy started surfing the web to figure out how to make paper mache (sp?) and before long he and Lena started their "little" project.  Needless to say, Lena's room was a complete disaster after they decided to make four piñatas and also paint them like pumpkins, witches and skeletons.  The end result was quite stunning.

Andy also coordinated all the advertisement of the event along with organizing the rest of us to each host various events.  Chad, who is homesick for his hunting knives, was more than willing to head up the pumpkin carving.  The one difficulty he had was finding pumpkins.  Halloween really means nothing to the Chinese and that means that pumpkins don't come in large supply this time of year either.  Eventually he had some students take him to one of the markets and they were able to scrounge some things that must be from the pumpkin family, but to actually be calling them a "full-blooded" pumpkin was really a stretch.

We also had David running musical chairs, Jon running the "pin" the eyes on the pumpkin, Andy heading up the dart throwing, Gabe having the students try their fortunes with cards and I coordinated the three legged race.  All of us took several of the gifts we had brought including, coins, pens, postcards and handed them out as prizes for each of the events.  We also went out and bought some candy, and school supplies like notebooks, erasers and pens.

Part of the fun for the evening was dressing in costume.  There really is no costume shop around so we all had to try and figure out what resources we had.  David was able to scrounge up a mop to be Raggedy Andy, Chad had his camouflage to be a soldier, Shane already has the hair of a rock star so he made that an easy transition.  Jon cut a couple eye holes in his sheet and came as a ghost.  I bet Andy never dreamt that he would be walking around campus in his green long underwear as a self proclaimed superhero.

Part of the fun for me was also going out earlier in the day to find a costume.  The night before I has seen a fabric shop, so I figured this would be a great place for me to get some black cloth as I was thinking about being Zorro.  Dealing with the owner was a bit of a task, but it was definitely fun.  Neither of us really understood one another's language and I know she was wondering what I planned to do with a sizeable piece of black material.  Several times she pointed to my pants as if to ask if I wanted to make pants.  I politely said no and she wanted me to draw a picture.  When I drew a stick figure with a cape she gave me a very puzzled look.  Eventually we decided on a size and it was easy enough to tied two of the corners around my neck and I had an instant cape.  Once we got that detail taken care of, she was quite interested when I attempted to explain about the mask.  Eventually she just handed me the chalk to draw the size of what I wanted on the remaining cloth.  I even got her to do the cut out of the eyes.  She was very accommodating.  Eventually she realized that it was a costume and she really thought it was funny.

The Chinese students were also intrigued by all the costumes.  You could hear all their reactions when they would see each of us in our costumes.  Then of course the pictures started.  Each of the students wanted a picture with one of the American students in costume.

One of the biggest hits of the evening was the piñata breaking.  Lena had made four so we broke them at different stages during the night.  We even got our Chinese teacher, Mrs. Guo, joining in on the action.  I didn't put the blind fold on her well enough because you could see her peaking.  Everyone was so excited to participate that no one wanted to stand back from the swinging stick.  Luckily, everyone avoided injury and there were tons of students diving all over after candy.  By the end of the evening we had already broken 3 piñatas and the party seemed to be winding down so we tried a new tactic.  Instead of having someone break it, we decided to break it up on our own and send the candy flying to all corners of the room.  It was really a big hit.

All in all, I believe the Halloween party was an extremely fun time and I would recommend that next years' group should do the same thing.

Well, we're off to Beijing in the morning so you won't hear from me until sometime after November 11th.  I can't wait to share that experience with you all as soon as we return.