HALLOWEEN!!!??!!

LIFE STARTS WHEN DAWN APPEARS. PUNPKINS WITH EVIL LOOKS SPITTING OUT FIRE, KNOCKING INTO EVERY DOORSTEP IT COULD SEE, ASKING FOR……..Trick or Treat??

It is Halloween once again and on this coming Saturday will be my 20th Halloween since I was born. I wonder how it will be this year. Planning has been up, pumpkins had been carved, costumes had been rented but there are still so much more to do, especially buying sweets to actually treat kids. But I was definitely one of them 10 years ago, asking for sweets from relatives as this event is not really that accepted in the norm of Malaysia. But whatever, the most important is to have fun and to have sweets.

But this year’s Halloween will be a little different as everything will be celebrated through night clubs. A whole bunch of us will be meeting up in the club, celebrating Halloween together by drinking, by wearing spooky costumes, by performance and many more. But guess what, it is organized by my dear “brother” Wallace and it will definitely be a success tomorrow night. Just hope that that there is no one who is actually drinking blood.

But no matter what, lets recall a little bit on how did Halloween came by. It is usually celebrated on the 31st of October every year. This day is often associated with the colour of black and orange, and it is strongly associated with symbols like jack-o’-lantern. It’s origin was through an ancient festival known as Samhain (pronounced as sow-in or sau-an) which derived from the Old Irish and it roughly means the “summer’s end” in which it means to celebrate the end of the “lighter half” and the beginning of the “darker half” which is also known as the “Celtic New Year”. The celebration has some elements of a festival of the dead where the Celts believed that the border between this world and the other world became thin and allowing spirits to come through. Therefore, it is believed that the need to ward off harmful spirits is the need to wearing costumes and masks as to disguise oneself as a harmful spirit and thus avoid harm. But it is different in Scotland where spirits were impersonated by young men dressed in white with masks, veiled or blackened faces.

Bonfires (a large, controlled outdoor fire. The word is a contraction of “bone fire”. The practice is believed to derive from the Celtic festival of Samhain when animal bones were burnt to ward off evil spirits.) played a large role in this festive where all other fires were doused and each home lit their hearth from the bonfire. The bones of slaughtered livestock were cast into its flames. Sometimes two bonfires would be built side-by-side, and people and their livestock would walk between them as a cleansing ritual. Another common practice was divination, which often involved the use of food and drink.

But no matter how bad the reality earth got invaded by spirits and everything, we still celebrate it. Rather than saying that it is a bad day for people to actually come out without costume, why not we say that it is a time where people could actually get together, know each other more and become closer towards each other. So, have fun during Halloween, and happy HaLlOwEeN!! Haha…