Halloween in Kathmandu

Finally–the American festive season has begun.

Dasaain is definitely unique. Tihar is beautiful. Chhat (sp?), a festival that’s mostly celebrated in Southern Nepal, has been extending some interesting influences lately, with fresh marigold garlands for sale at the chowks, and… well, frankly, it looks like some of my neighbors have put up what looks like a Medieval European corn maiden outside their house (I promise a picture, once I get it off the camera.)

But now, finally, it’s time for the American harvest festivals.

How many autumn decorations can YOU fit on one small coffee table?

I’ve been trying very hard, for over a month, to convince myself that it’s fall. I got out the autumn decorations on the equinox; I picked up a book of ghost stories, and two others that reviewed actual medieval accounts of the witch trials in Europe. We decided it was finally time to watch Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Angel, so we had a bunch of cavorting vampires and demons and witches.

But… the trees stayed stubbornly green, and only in the past week have we noticed anyone wearing jackets–and then just in the morning, or late evening. And we tend to giggle at them, because while we’ve agreed to wear long sleeves a few days ourselves, our Mid-Western raised bodies aren’t convinced that it’s anywhere near chilly enough to bother with a jacket.

All ye Americans out there, consider our plight: We haven’t passed any jack-o-lanterns, or signs for haunted houses, or billboards advertising “Halloween Super Stores.” We don’t open the newspaper for advertisements to fall out featuring sacks of candy and strange decorations, and there have been no commercials on TV featuring Dracula or mummies or witches. We live in a world without little graphics of dancing skeletons or smiling ghosts or black cats with arched backs. We can’t play flip-the-channel and stumble on Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin or Double Trouble or random horror flicks. No Halloween episodes of our favorite shows, no, not for us. No trick-or-treaters ringing our doorbell tonight.

Unsuspecting Nepalis have no idea I look out at them through a veil of strange decorations.

So, frankly, we get a stark understanding of what it means to live in another culture. Have you ever tried to explain the cultural “significance” of a paper snowflake? I did, while putting up decorations last year, and discovered a whole new awareness of the word “culture.”

So it’s an amazing comfort to continue your own traditions with people who share them, when you live in the midst of a bunch of people who don’t. I think it’s even more fun, in a way; it’s definitely more special.

Suddenly, today, when we walked into our friends’ Halloween party, we were all grins, realizing that, for the first time, it was really Halloween. Cobwebs draped over the typical Kathmandu gate, and demons howled from a remote sensor along the wall. Grinning skulls flickered on a wreath; a foam graveyard sprouted on the front lawn, with a ghost arising; a corner of the driveway was cordoned off with “caution” tape and an outline was drawn in chalk and sprinkled with blood and an abandoned gun. Fog machines thickened the air, dark and spooky songs pounded from the speakers… and everybody laughed and greeted each other with, “Wow, your costume is great!”

Superheroes eased past Little Red Riding Hoods, and Madonna schmoozed with a fairy and a zombie waitress. Vampires and mummies and pregnant nuns stalked around, looking for a cup of beer or coke. The representatives of Hispanic, Japanese, and Arab cultures were not there in the capacity of diplomats at an international gathering; they were hanging out and having fun. I was a queen in the grand European tradition in a nation that outlawed its monarchy three days before I set foot in the country.

We decided all the Nepalis must think we were crazy. The neighbors of my friends must have wondered what on earth was going on, with VERY strangely dressed (even more strangely dressed than normal) Westerners wandering around the streets. When we dropped off one of our friends after the party, and I realized I’d forgotten to wish her a parting, “Happy Halloween!”, I hesitated to roll down the window and shout it to her down the street. It was 11:00; all the lights in the houses were out. But my husband said, “Aw, go ahead. Pay back for Tihar.” During which, of course, we had a full band playing next door at 11:00. But we’re the minority here, and I decided the shout wasn’t worth it.

Since I can't find the traditional squash from home, I make do with what I have. Any clues about the green things? They grow in my yard, but I have no idea what they are.

But now I sit here typing and picking out the best pictures of the decorations in our house (actually from last year; I haven’t downloaded from the camera lately.) I was listening to CDs with spooky sound effects. Now I have Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “Night Castle” going; on my playlist I’ve had Mannheim Steamroller’s “Harvest Dance” and “Rock and Roll Graveyard” playing right with “Hall of the Mountain King” and “Ride of the Valkyries” and “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor”. I’ve had a vampire belting out “Let me rest in peace” from the Buffy musical episode, and Nine Inch Nails and Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson all doing their distinctive thing; I’ve let all this background music support writing brutal battles in the war underway in my current novel.

But tomorrow we must lay the ghosts. It’s past midnight; All Saints’ Day has begun, and All Souls’ Day will follow hard on its heels. In fact, I plan to end tonight with my traditional playing of Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “Carol of the Bells” and a rendition of either “O Holy Night” or “Silent Night”; then all the other Christmas music may begin. Within the next few days, the Nutcracker will be playing, and I’ll be singing Latin hymns like “In natali domine” and “Danielis prophetia”.

We different cultures can glance askance at each other as strange. Yet, I think people who have just finished a ritual slaughter in remembrance of a goddess slaying an evil demon, and then have thanked crows and dogs for their essential duties related to death, and then welcomed the peaceful, kind bringer of good fortune and light into their lives for another year… Well, as different as we may be, are we, really?

Nepali of the Day:
sanskriti: culture
bhoj: party
marnu: to die
mriti: death
raat: night
giit: song
mithai: sweets
lugaa: clothes
sharad: autumn