Growing up in another country, I can never get used to the American culture. Among the different but altogether weird aspects of American culture, one thing I know I can never tolerate is Halloween. By “cannot tolerate”, I do not mean I dislike this holiday to such a point that I can’t digest anything about it. In fact, I like watching when everybody dressed up as various monsters, animals, fairytale characters, or even superstars. It is… Um, interesting. But when someone asks me, “Why aren’t you dressing up?” WOW! I did say I like to WATCH didn’t I? It doesn’t mean I want to be a part of it!
It doesn’t matter when someone else is doing it, but no matter what, I won’t do it. This is the baseline I held for most of the things here in the United States. I know for a fact that, no matter how long I stay here, there is always something that I wouldn’t try, and Halloween is a part of it. It is permanent that I can never dress up in those costumes. I won’t allow it; my culture won’t allow it.
I actually don’t know why this is happening, but I guess when two cultures cross each other, there are always contradictions in between. For me, I would always stand on the side of my own culture.
Your posts tend to end with strong conclusions. In this post, you used Halloween as a great example to demonstrate the boundaries when two cultures cross each other. The post reminds me that I prefer watching American football rather than playing the game because Asians are usually not built stocky enough to compete in American sports.
Your first sentence really hit home for me. Also coming from a different country, I not only find some of the American traditions strange but also impossible for me to take part in. Though I do enjoy Halloween, there are things like sleep-overs and shopping with friends that I never got accustomed to. In the back of my mind, there was always the question of “why” when it came to those things. From one side, its unpleasant because we don’t fit in with the larger crowd. But from the other, we manage to stay true to certain aspects of our own culture and to ourselves.
I found your post quite amusing to read because although I have grown up in the states all my life, I still do agree with you to some extent. I used to dress up as a little pumpkin when I was young kindergartener. It was exciting and thrilling back then, to be able to be something I’m not and get candy for it. Now, it’s something that I would probably never do again. It also probably has to do with the idea of Halloween that has changed dramatically as I grew up – the things my peers dress up as these days are things I would never, even in another life, dress up as.