... notable events : My First Halloween

West Vine Street, Kalamazoo, Michigan, U.S.A.

That was our first house in the US. Rented of course. On my dad's government scholarship, we could afford little else. I was 6 years old and my dad had brought his family with him to the US while he did his Masters at the Western Michigan University.

He arrived first. Mom and her two darling kids followed a few months later. I still remember my grandparents sending us off at Subang International Airport. My mom recalls the worried looks on grandma's face and the constant barrage of advice and dos and don'ts. This was the mid 1970s and hardly anyone travelled far, let alone fly halfway across the world to live. All I remembered was the roar of jets, the hot tarmac as we walked towards the mobile stairs to board our plane, and my relatives waving from the open-air send-off area on the second storey balcony.

It was October 1977 and my first ever flight on an airplane.

We touched down at Haneda International Airport, Tokyo on transit. Mom took us around and I got a glimpse of the famed Japanese Bullet Train. I remember mom talking the Shinkansen guard to let us just slip in through the fare gates without tickets to see the trains. She didn't know how to speak Japanese but used written Chinese to communicate her intent. Holding my sister's hand, I slipped through to watch the trains.  We also saw vending machines for the first time.  Quite the novelty when you can just buy stuff by slotting in coins.

After a few nights in Tokyo, we were on our way again, next stop LAX. The flight over was a long and tiring flight and all enthusiasm and excitement over the journey had long left my spirit by then. My mom, very perceptively had given me a simple sling bag made of some hardy PVC material. Dragging my bag by the strap behind me, it bumped along the airport floor exactly as my mom predicted I would do, but that was the best I could manage, tired as I was, both mentally and physically.

From LA International, it was yet another flight to Chicago. It was a tiring flight, crossing almost the entire span of continental USA. When we finally arrived in Chicago, we were all so sick and tired of airplanes that we would have sworn never to leave terra-firma ever again if we'd been asked to. But yet we still had the final flight to make.

At Chicago O'Hare Airport, the final hop to Kalamazoo was via a small Fokker Friendship. It was a harrrowing flight, buffeted by turbulence the entire 1 hour journey. After what must have been up to that moment, the worse experience of my young life, we finally arrived at the small Kalamazoo airport in the late evening. My father was there with his second-hand green oldsmobile, and his big smile to greet 3 very tired travellers.

So it was at the double storey rented semi-detached house at West Vine Street that I saw my first Halloween a week or so later. Newly arrived, we were entirely unprepared for the celebration. The first inkling I had of Halloween was my mom's scream at the front door when she opened it in responses to the door bell. I'm not sure who was the more frighten of the two, my mom who was suddenly faced with a few rather stunted ghouls and ghosts, or the little ghouls and ghosts who were suddenly faced with a madly screaming Chinese lady. Our neighbours on our left, a pair of very pretty young ladies with blonde hair, rushed over to see what the matter was and the amusement in their eyes was plain to see when they realised what the problem was. They very merrily explained the nature of the celebration and mom in the spirit of the holiday, searched the fridge for sweets and candy to give to the trick-o-treating kids. So heightened was her excitement that we later found a small fridge tray missing, probably dropped off along with the candy into one of the kid's bags.

I'm not sure how but mom managed to get a stack of candy which sat in a large pile on the dining table. We spent the rest of the day answering the door and doling out candy to all the little demons and creepy monsters that came knocking and yelling much too loudly "Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat".

My sister and I didn't have costumes, and we didn't go trick-o-treating except to our pretty female neighbours who very generously gave us lots of candy for our efforts, despite not looking the least scary or funny. We threw this into the dwindling stack on the dining table, careful to only steal a few here and there whenever we thought that mom wasn't looking as we had been warned not to eat any as she needed the meager supply to give out to all the other kids who came by.

It was with much relief when the hour hand drew close to midnight and no more trick-o-treaters came. Mom locked the door and distributed our the remaining candy between my sister and I. My favourite were the orange and yellow triangular candycorns which I'm sure contributed greatly to the many cavities that I got in my teeth.

Next year we told ourselves. Next year we would know what Halloween was and mom promised that we would be ready, ghoulish costumes, candy and all. With that promise we trudged up the stairs to bed, dreaming of the day's events, the day we had our first Halloween.