growing up in bangkok, didn’t feel that i missed out too much on halloween. at the international school there were lots of american kids, and man oh man, did they know how to celebrate the day. it was all very strategic, there were certain zones you wanted to get into for trick or treating. mainly the us embassy living compounds: they were a couple on sukhumvit soi 39, and some on mahadlek luang by rajdamri. and if you were really playing children’s politics, you’d know who to make friends with in order to get into the US commissary and stock up on candayyy… or what we called “american candy” because there’s a difference. between ruffles, jolly ranchers, starburst.. and say… mun mun, ole, and sugus.

the annual halloween parade held at school was always something fun to look forward to and an opportunity to get your picture in the paper if you had a really kickass costume. imagine 500 elementary school children from all around the world, dressed up in anything from homemade to store bought costumes walking around in a circle for an hour in the sweltering heat to let the parents home video the event and just take pictures. it was so much fun! even the games we played and the lame ass classrooom-conversion-to-spooky houses.

i was in choir too, and we’d always go sing at neilsen hays library on halloween. we’d all get dressed up and sing some sort of showtune and some sordid pop song that was of the moment. i remember it being absolutely horrendous, because this was way before the library had air conditioning and wearing a 6 inch thick jack-o-lantern suit was not. fun. looking back, the people that turned up to watch us were the exact same people who came to our school’s halloween assembly: our parents.

last i heard of the halloween celebration day, was that it was combined with the “sanook fair” (a great fair on its own right) into something highly retarded called hallownuk.