Clark Diaries

2nd Nov, 2008

Halloween!

It was the Halloween weekend!

Thursday night, I went to the Multicultural Haunted House, which was organized by the Asian Culture Society. The dining hall was all dark and well decorated for the Haunted house. It was supposed to start at ten pm, however, the line started well before nine thirty. We stood in line and got tickets that put us in the time slot 12 to 12:30pm.

While waiting for our turn to experience being haunted, my friends and I went to the drag ball in Tilton Hall. Drag ball is a traditional Clark Halloween event when guys dress up like girls, and girls dress up like guys. There were many people in the drag ball, dancing, talking with friends, and taking pictures. One of the guy caught my attention, he was wearing a red tight dress with a pair of three-inch high heeled shoes; he also curled his hair and wore make-up on. I was deeply amazed by his effort and I had faith that he would win the best-dressing contest that night. Girls were also dressed in many styles; hip-hop style, cow boy style, formal style, and so on. I felt strange and out of place because I didn’t dress up, so I went back to my room and put on a scary movie before heading back to the haunted house.

Finally, it was time for the Haunted house. We were divided into groups of ten. I wanted to stay in the middle of the group so that I should be safe at all times, I suppose. The story telling part and the murder scene didn’t really get me, but it was great fun. When I was just taking a break and setting my heart at rest, I entered the maze where red and white clothes were hung all over the place. There were “ghost” hiding behind the clothes and they appeared and screamed at me when I was obviously not prepared. It eased my fear when I also ran into my friend who was dresses up in a clown costume, who was rather cute than scary. I really enjoyed the haunted house event and I hope I can help haunting next year.

Friday night, I went to a great Chinese restaurant in Framingham called “Old Sichuan”. The dishes there were very delicious and they tasted like the food back home. We had spicy beef & tendon, sizzling lamb, home-made tofu, Sichuan style string beans, and pork with a Chinese vegetable which is rarely found in the US. We drove by Clark’s Framingham campus on our way back. I was surprised when I saw the name ” Clark University” since I didn’t know there is another campus; later my friend told me that some classes for the Graduate School of Management are taught there. Then, I went back to my suite and joined my friends’ costume party. We played cards game and slap, and name game that required a sense of rhythm. It was great fun!

Halloween is still new to me because we don’t celebrate Halloween as big in China. I think it is so fun to dress up and see people dressed up in all kinds of cute and funny costumes. I love Halloween.