We didn’t do anything earth-shattering or out of the ordinary, but for these college students it was all a grand adventure. We started the evening with pumpkin-carving. Most of the students had seen enough Western television to know how to carve the face, but they didn’t realize you had to cut the top off and “gut” the pumpkin so you could put a candle in it. Their faces were priceless as they stuck their hands inside to pull out the innards. It was definitely a “textural” experience for them.
Next we had a costume fashion show. Many of the students were reluctant to wear one, but they all were required to at least attempt something. Some of them are shown below:
The next event was a buffet—always the favorite: Fried Chicken, yellow rice, spicy dried soybean curd, and a number of other things. All of that, of course was normal party food for them. However, the roasted pumpkin seeds were not. It was funny to see how hesitant everyone was to try them. (Whether it was because they were recalling the feeling of pulling them out of the pumpkins earlier, the notion that they were eating the “guts” of the pumpkin, or just the fact they had never had them before, I’m not sure.) One or two brave souls tried, and soon everyone was in on the action. I guess all of our Moms were right: “Try it and you might like it!”
After everyone had plenty of time to eat and visit, there was an apple bobbing competition. A few of the neighborhood kids had trickled in by that point and were eager to be the first to try. Some of them seemed more interested in falling into the tub of water than getting the apples, but they had a blast, and again the college students were intrigued. One-by-one inhibitions were left behind, costumes were set aside, and heads dropped beneath the water like rocks in a cranberry bog. Regardless of the expression going in, or whether they had an apple coming out, everyone came up smiling. Interesting how immersion in water has that effect on us, isn’t it?
To close the party out we improvised neighborhood trick-or-treating. We put native English speakers in different rooms in the house with bags of candy and the 80+ guests had to come to each door, knock, and say “trick-or-treat.” The “trick” was that in order to get their candy they had to complete a task—singing a song, do a dance, make animal noises, etc. Try doing that in America with a bunch of college students! These students, however, LOVED it. They were laughing, singing, dancing, and barking their hearts out simply because they were enjoying the whole experience.
While I totally agree that every activity and pleasurable experience doesn’t have to come with a lesson, it’s amazing to me how many of them do if we only stop to think. I was reminded tonight that there are good reasons why people long to be young again and why some of the best things in life can only be experienced when we come with the wide-eyed wonder and uninhibited hearts of children ready to abandon themselves to the experience. It may cost us our pride, but I’ve never met anyone who gave that up and missed it later.
