Late October in Seattle can be a gloomy time – the days grow shorter and colder, the colorful leaves turn brown and fall off the trees, many days are cloudy and wet – but Halloween adds a lot of color, fun and excitement.
Halloween is actually the night of October 31st, but since that was a Saturday this year, our students had their Halloween parties in class and at school on Thursday and Friday. All the HTC students got into the Halloween spirit and came to class in costume. Among the girls there were a lot of typical costumes – angels, witches, cats, pirates, maids, and various princesses from Disney films – but as has been the trend in recent years, most of the costumes were too short and sexy for the October weather in Seattle (many students had colds the following week). The guys’ costumes also included some typical Halloween themes – vampires, skeletons, monsters – but several of the guys, even Mr. Nojima, gave the girls some tough competition for sexiest costume by dressing as drag queens (= men dressed as women). At the Halloween Party at Shoreline Community College, HTC student Taihei Shimizu won the costume contest with his Pink Lady outfit.
I turned to the Bible for inspiration and went dressed as Moses, with two fake stone tablets and a long wooden staff. To my chagrin, none of the HTC students could guess who I was; they asked “Are you from ‘Lord of the Rings’ or Professor Dumbledore from ‘Harry Potter?’ “, but the American people and many of the other international students from Asia could recognize Moses easily. I guess that is evidence of the absence of religious themes, especially Western religion, in Japanese education.
Neal Colodner, HTC Seattle
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