Yesterday, 10/31/2008, was Halloween.  I took the 10-year-old to go trick-or-treating inside our neighborhood. He was overwhelmed by the amount of candies that he thus got.  This is his first Halloween here.  It reminded me of the time when my children were small and how I took them out on Halloween night.

I remember reading with my children about ghost stories around this time of the year. They were all familiar with many famous western ghost stories or scenes of ghost, such as, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, the ghost telling Hamlet the truth about his father’s death. The ghosts, brought to life by authors, always fulfil certain mission that the living cannot do.

To be sure, ghost stories are people’s favorites everywhere around the world. There are many ghost stories in Chinese culture. One coming up to my head is Liao Zhai by Pu Songling. I hope someday my children will be able to read these stories and understand that the ghost stories are not for ghost but for us living. You can also say Halloween is not “All Saints’ Day” as it was originally meant to.