My first Halloween was in 1982, 4 months after I immigrated to this country from Asia. I remember just hating makeup, and was pissy that my aunt (Cousin Jen and Cousin Diana’s mom, whom we were residing with at the time) made me wear some as part of my costume. My other aunt had sewn costumes for Diana, Jennifer and me. We were traditional Chinese girls (how far from traditional Chinese girls the three of us are now, haha).

Altho Diana and Jennifer didn’t care for makeup either and I remember that the lipsticky feel bothered them, they were better sports about that than me. In the photo, from left to right are Diana, me, Jeannie, Jennifer and Kai. I can’t believe Jeannie and Kai are MARRIED now.

I didn’t understand the concept of Halloween at the time. We go door to door, say some odd little phrase, and the residents must give us free candy or else we would do mean things to them? That’s how my aunt explained the phrase “trick or treat” to me. Give us a treat or we’ll play a trick on you, we threaten. I received a tutorial on how to say these magical candy-producing words, and we started our trek around the neighborhood.

I do not like Halloween. People in America are mean! They run out of bushes and chase you around their yard, roaring and growling at you. This is not worth the meager bits of candy that we received, which we weren’t allowed to eat anyway because our parents threw away everything that wasn’t in a sealed wrapper for fear that we’d eat poison or hidden razor blades. And what’s up with people handing out 5 pennies taped together in a makeshift roll? The hell were we gonna do with those?!