By mfretes93
One of my favorite days of the year, every year, is Halloween. I've just always found it to be something that people of all ages can enjoy: the young get free candy from neighbors whose names they can't remember; teenagers have an excuse to throw eggs at things to feel alive; and adults can dress up as their favorite character from anything and no one will make fun of them. It's a win-win for everyone!
But Halloween is especially a big deal for college campuses all across the country, with students dressing up as anything that exists on the planet, from witches to animals to TV characters to personifications of ideas. Needless to say, it's an event that all students look forward to, and I was saddened that I wouldn't be able to join in the festivities this year.
In fact, I thought that October 31st in Rio de Janeiro would be like any typical weekday, and that maybe one of my American friends with have a Halloween get-together in their home out of necessity, and that would be it.
Little did I know, America has a very strong influence on the culture of the world. Which is to say, even through I thought Halloween was primarily an American thing, it turns out that other nations across the world have adopted the practice of dressing up on October 31st, since the U.S. made it so marketable to do so.
Which isn't to say that countries don't have their own unique take on the holiday.
My roommate and I, thinking that Halloween would be unimportant outside of the U.S., put absolutely no thought to our costumes, up until three hours before our American friend's Halloween party. This friend was having said party to not only allow fellow Americans to indulge in their favorite holiday, but also to show our Brazilian friends what Halloween is like for us in the States.
But with so much going on in our lives, from school to volunteering to planning trips and talking to family, my roommate and I had little time to put as much planning into our Halloween costumes as we would've liked. So, minutes before leaving for our friend's get-together, my roommate, who has been on crutches ever since a freak samba accident, dressed up as a character (Walter Jr.) from a TV show that he has never seen (Breaking Bad) by taking an old t-shirt and writing the character's "slogan" on it. While this happened, I put on an oversized tank top and athletic shorts and called myself a "frat boy" for the night.
What we expected to see upon entering the apartment was a roomful of Americans wearing various costumes of varying levels of creativity, with most of the costumes being some variation of "cat" or "witch."
What we ended up actually walking into, on the other hand, was a room full of mostly Brazilians and Europeans, all dressed up in extravagant, expertly-designed, and actually frightening costumes. Everyone was dressed up as something scary, whether it was a witch, a ghost, a zombie sailor, or a bloody vampire. Not only were all of these costumes well-designed, with fang accessories and all, but everyone, men and women, had perfect makeup to go along with their costumes, fake blood and bruises galore.
It turns out that, especially in Brazil, dressing up for Halloween doesn't mean looking up the latest cultural trends and figuring out how to turn it into a cheap costume. There are no Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, or Nicki Minaj costumes to be seen on October 31st throughout the streets of Rio. Instead, people choose to dress up as scary things: a costume on Halloween is supposed to inspire fear, not a chuckle on the street.
Needless to say then, both me and my roommate's costumes went over everyone's head. Few people watched Breaking Bad, and even fewer people even knew what a fraternity was. We were the two silly Americans in silly clothes in a sea of costumes that would give Carnaval a run for its money.
So while we may have experienced enough embarrassment for one night, we at least know now to always ask about holidays abroad before trying to celebrate them. After all, America doesn't have a monopoly on all the world's fun.
Is Halloween a thing abroad? #GWU #GWUAbroad