Halloween in Beijing

Halloween is celebrated by a small sub-section of people in Beijing - mainly expats and young local students and professionals. We went to a club called Vics that was covered with all the requisite Halloween decorations - cobwebs, pumpkins, smoke, etc. Even all the people working there were dressed up - as pirates, pumpkins, cats and ghouls. Nevertheless, it was still obvious I was not in NYC. Besides the fact the club was full of smoke, the costumes are very wholesome. While the notion of dressing up has taken hold, the notion of Halloween as the one day of the year where it's okay to dress like a tramp and wear very little (with no repercussions) has not make it over here yet. People were for the most part, fully covered. The one exception was this one expat who went dressed as a belly dancer and wore almost nothing. She definitely got lots of stares and amused looks.

Since I'm in Beijing so little, whenever I'm in the city, I feel the need to go out as much as possible. Went out 4 nights in a row, starting Halloween. Met some fun people Thursday night for dinner and then hung out with a bunch of them on Friday and Saturday as well. The expat circles are pretty small here and it does feel like everyone is a friend of someone you know. From my nights out at mainly expat hangouts, I've concluded that there are 2 groups of foreigners in Beijing - the first are interesting people who are doing really cool things here and the second are people who just didn't quite make the mark in the States (jobless, socially awkward, not well adjusted, etc.) who came out here because its a cheap playground for foreigners and you can achieve "cool" status by virtue of being white. So many local Chinese girls are willing to put up with anything to date a white guy (and some have a rule to date only white guys), making it easy for even the biggest losers to find hot girlfriends. The second group is in general quite weird. Needless to say, I hang out only with the first.

Qin and I are going to Hong Kong and Macau for 4 days starting this Thursday. It's freezing in Beijing and there's no heat, so I'm looking forward to a bit of beach time. Besides, I've faded into almost fashionable Asian paleness - a bit of sun will do me good. I've had to resort to sleeping in a hooded sweatshirt and DHA sweatpants and 3 layers of blankets to sleep. Can't wait for the heat to come on. Ironically, I've been told that it's much colder in the southern parts of China during the winter because there is no heat except in 5 star hotels and expensive new apartment complexes; thus, people in the south supposedly can handle the cold better. It's so miserable to have to stay almost as bundled indoors as outdoors, which is what I've basically had to do these past couple of weeks so can't imagine having to do that for a whole winter. Finally went out about bought a bunch of cashmere sweaters and a down jacket. Oh, and I finally have hot water again, after a week of only icy cold water. Just can't take anything for granted here!