• Tweet

“Happy Halloween, Shelly” I told her yesterday while at work.  Her lack of reply coupled with confused eyes told me she didn’t understand.  After trying in vain to explain the holiday in English, then Chinese, and even play charades, we finally resorted to pulling out the trusty cellphone/pocket dictionary.  It was here that I learned a new word for this holiday I have traditionally called Halloween: her dictionary only displayed the word “Hallowmas“.

“So do you celebrate Halloween or Hallowmas?” she asked me?  I thought it was Halloween…but now I’m not so sure.

I did some research and found that Hallowmas, also called “All Saints Day” is a holiday celebrated on November 1st and was started in 835 to replace the Celtic festival of the dead.  During this Celtic holiday the Druids wore costumes, built bonfires to honor Celtic deities, and even tried to tell each others fortunes.  Sound familiar?  Our modern concept of Halloween comes from the celebration of Hallows Eve the night before the November 1st holiday, but instead of being used to honor (not worship) actual deceased people as intended we’ve shrewdly decided to follow the ways of the ancient Celts who sought out ghosts and spirits.  We’re such a smart human race.  So this holiday has somehow managed to not only change days throughout history, but also religious affiliations and even its name. That’s pretty impressive if you ask me.

Which brings me back to the dictionary.  As confused as I’ve become trying to research this one word, I can only imagine how the writers of the English-Chinese dictionary felt trying to figure out what to use.  I’m no expert in Chinese, but both terms for Hallowmas (诸圣日） and Halloween (万圣节) seem similar and translate into “All-Holy Day“, which tells me that the translation was probably derived from the original Hallowmas holiday.  That might explain why Shelly’s cellphone told her this holiday was called “Hallowmas”.

I thanked my friend Shelly for teaching me a new English word – you’d be surprised at how many new words you can learn from Chinese people – and told her that to avoid confusion it would be best to refer to this holiday as Halloween no matter what her cell phone tells her.  So on behalf of both Tiffany and I, we wish you all a Happy Hallowmas…er…Halloween.