Halloween Party

So as many of you know, I had been planning on throwing a huge Halloween event in my town ever since I got here. Once I broached the topic to Local Nate and his two co-workers in the International Relations group at the City Hall, they were really excited and were able to do a lot of the planning and budgeting for the event, since putting on such a cultural shindig is totally within the scope of their job. With the help of the Shikokuchuo International Friendship Association (SIFA), members of my book club and an awesome group of middle and high school girls, we put on a Halloween Party to which over 130 people came!

Games included:
Kabocha (Japanese Pumpkin) Bowling, with kabocha and water bottles filled with orange water
Pin the Tail on the Black Cat
Halloween Twister (yes, it exists!)
Can Toss, with Halloween-decorated cans

Crafts included:
Halloween mask-making
Halloween coloring pages
Halloween bracelet making (basically harvest-colored beads)
Halloween origami

Other attractions:
Halloween TV Specials: Charlie Brown, Spongebob, etc.
Picture Station with Halloween Cut-Outs (made by the art club at the high school)
Caramel Apples (which Nate, Beth & I made that morning: over 60 of them!)
S'mores (we had leftover materials from another event)

Main Events:
Magic Show
Costume Contest
Thriller Performance (sung by me!)





Since Halloween conveniently fell on a Saturday, we had the event right on Halloween, from 6:30-9. Nate, Beth and I were there all day; we had help in the afternoon from a ton of nice people! A lot of members of the book club I'm currently running came, as did some of the high school students who made the picture cut-outs. A great group of middle school girls who had participated in Nate's English Camp earlier in October came in the early afternoon, and when asked how long they could stay, one of them replied, "Forever!" These wonderful people helped us put up tons of decorations, make signs for each game and station, and get all the games ready.



My friends Aya and Asagi showed up a little early so that we girls, including Beth, could put on make up together. Aya and Asagi dressed up as pirates, Beth was Dorothy, and I was a Sexy Witch, mostly because the only black skirt I could find that fit me was a knee-lenth one with ties and ruffles that surely no proper witch would wear. When people asked about my costume, I said I was a Fashionable Witch, not knowing how well the sexy part would go over, but I did tell the actual name to Reiko-san, who referred to me as Sexy Witch for the rest of the night :-)



People started coming even before 6:30, and we were fortunate that so many of our friends and volunteers from earlier wanted to help out during the event as well. Nate, as Master of Ceremonies, was busy making sure everything was in order for our different events, so I walked around to make sure everything was going smoothly. In the course of this, I met some of my junior high school students and even more elementary school students from the schools I had visited. Some kids did come in costume, and many more made masks or won hats as game prizes. One of the elementary school girls made me a bracelet, and many kids asked to take pictures with me. I'm quite a celebrity, you see! The picture below is me with Reiko-san's grandsons, Yojiro and Ryotaro:


One of Aya's friends, Onishi-kun, performed an awesome 30-minute magi show in which both of Reiko-san's grandsons got to participate. During the costume contest, I dragged every child wearing a costume, most of them unwillingly, onto the stage, and then did a little catwalk myself. Lastly, near the end of the night, I got on stage with Nate, Beth, Aya and Asagi at my back, to sing Thriller. I was a bit under the weather at the time, but I was determined to do it! I did manage a bit of the Thriller dance at the end, but for most of the song I mimed the lyrics as much as possible, since most Japanese people are familiar with the song but don't really know what it means. We got a resounding applause and I received many compliments afterward.



I thought cleaning up would take forever, but we had a lot of help with that, too, so it didn't take more than 20 minutes. I was so impressed with how many people volunteered their time for this event, even some who couldn't make the actual thing but wanted to help decorate! They helped the event look fantastic and run smoothly, and it was so successful that it might become an annual event here in Shikokuchuo. And all because of me! Muwahaha! Excuse a little pride on my part, but I really had been thinking of this and dreaming of it for months, so I'm really glad it went well.


Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!