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

First Halloween in Kathmandu

In my update post of a few days ago, I overviewed four major things to update:

1)  Getting the puppy

2)  Nepali Tihar festival

3)  Halloween

4)  Pokhara

(1) and (2) have already been posted on… it’s long enough from (3) that I think I may just save my pictures of it for next October.  There’s not too much to share for it anyway–as I also mentioned in the overview post, we were both sick throughout the last half of October.  The being sick ranged from a flu-like thing that never wanted to end, to an instance for both of us of general tummy trouble, including vomiting.  The “flu,” we’ve been advised, was probably caused by our allergies going insane from the dusty air here now that the monsoon season is over, leading to miserable secondary sinus infections; we’re now both on daily allergy medicine and breathing just about normally.  The tummy trouble could have been anything from an actual virus going around (several of our friends and coworkers had problems around the same time) or something caused by food, which is REALLY common here; in any case, that’s cleared up nicely, too.

The Halloween-related point is that we didn’t actually do anything for Halloween.  We were invited to three different parties, and were too sick to attend any of them.  The only pictures I have are of our own household decorations.  But at least we did celebrate the day some on our own–all October I read a book of H. P. Lovecraft’s creepy stories, including “The Call of the Cthulhu,” and what I personally [and apparently at least some critics agree] think was even scarier, “The Color Out of Space.”  And we watched the first episode of “Carnivale” and some Simpsons Halloween episodes.  But that was all.

Then, on November 1st, we fussed about getting the puppy set up with our household guard–who really likes her, and plays with her and pets her both.  And, with suitcases packed, we headed for the Kathmandu airport…

But since the internet’s not cooperating this evening (it keeps dropping out for no reason), I can’t upload any pictures, so I’ll wait until tomorrow to add some more.  And maybe add at least a couple of Halloween-themed pictures here?

In honor of Halloween, giant bats soar over the Kathmandu foothills of the Himalayas!

Think I'm joking? Look carefully at this picture--it's not out of proportion. There really ARE giant bats in Kathmandu, and they like to sleep upside down in the trees near Thamel. (But, no, the ones in the previous picture weren't real--though this one is!)

Puppy Update:

Due to great interest, I’ll add a paragraph or so on the puppy daily, or at least any time there’s something new, ok?

The puppy now has a name.  It’s what I mentioned before–“Alaskan Himal.”  But mostly we’re still just calling her puppy, occasionally interspersed with “Alaska.”

She’s learned how to sleep through the night!  On Friday I was up until 2 am, and took her out then — but she didn’t wake us up at all, even though we slept in until almost 9 on Saturday.  Then, last night, too — she went out a final time around 12, and didn’t wake up until we did at 7:30.  This is MUCH better than taking her out three times in the middle of the night, which we used to have to do.  The first week she lived with us, she seemed unable to go longer than about three hours without waking up and whining desperately to be let out of her crate and carried outside.

During the day, too, she’s making less messes in the house–and when we’ve left her in the laundry room while everyone was gone, on two separate evenings over the last few days (for a total of over 9 hours, combined) she’s only made a single mess overall.  Instead, she waited patiently until we were home to take her out.  I think she’s diligently working on that getting housebroken thing!

The Past 3 Weeks, in 30 Seconds

Yes, once again, I have disappeared for a suspiciously long time.  The truth is, again, I’ve had computer issues.  And I’ve been sick.  And I’ve been busy.  For example:

Nepal celebrated this:

Tihar is a Nepali festival to welcome the New Year with light. For non-Nepalis, it's an excuse to be a pyromaniac for three days straight. Whee!

Our household celebrated this:

L'Orange uses her strong cat magic to summon glowing jack o'lanterns all the way to Nepal for Halloween.

We adopted this:

Oh, dear. There are already calls to add her in the title, too. As if it weren't long enough as it is...

And we saw this:

The Himalayas rise over Phewa Lake in Pokhara.

But, as you see, I took pictures all along the way.  So — as long as the computer and internet continue to work — I will be very busy with posting once again.

By the way, are you American?  Is it November 4th your time?  Then VOTE!!!!

(And if it seems like a bother, just think of poor little me, and thousands like me, filling out our requests for absentee ballots months ago, and then going through the ballot itself weeks ago, and getting it stamped and mailing it through the U. S. Embassy.  Look, just drive to your local polling place and pull the lever or fill out the bubbles or whatever!!!)

Nepali of the Day:

Ma baraami thiyo:  I was sick.

Ahile ma baraami lagdaina.:  I’m not sick now.

Nepal Sambat:  native Nepali calendar, mostly used by Newars; New Year starts on 4th day of Tihar

Newar:  ethnic group native to the Kathmandu valley of Nepal

puja:  worship

biraalo:  cat

kukur:  dog

himal:  mountain

tol:  lake