Is Hallowe’en observed in France, Spain, Japan, Germany and other non-English speaking countries? Do they go all out for it or is it just a minor holiday and a social curiosity?
Halloween is recognized in Korea, but only in passing. A lot of English schools will have their students dress up for the day and maybe have a lesson on how it’s celebrated in the US - my mom’s school actually bought loads of candy and passed it out to the local merchants, who in turn passed it out to the kids, so the kids could experience trick-or-treating.
For college students Halloween is an excuse to dress weird and get drunk (like it is here, I suppose). It’s become more popular now that there are more people who’ve lived abroad for a few years and have actually experienced Halloween in context. The student organization I participated in during my undergrad threw a few Halloween parties, but mostly because a bunch of us grew up in the US and were feeling nostalgic. I never really liked Korean Halloween parties in general - no one remembers trick-or-treating, gorging on candy, cheesy ghost stories, etc, and most people are dressed up as Japanese anime characters.
I don’t think it’s very common here. I was out and about last night and didn’t see any Halloween festivities.
I saw two kids in costumes carrying pumpkin buckets, but I think they were going to a party (house down the street had lots of cars, music and decorations in the yard).
That said, the lolly companies and some supermarkets are going hardcore to try and force us to celebrate halloween over here. Spotlight have been selling halloween decorations for at least a month now, and Allens lollies are being sold with “Trick or Treat” bags with instructions on the back for how to get Halloween loot from your neighbours.
I would say Halloween was only known here in US media, up til somewhere between 10 and 15 years ago. But the continual pressure from TV and movies - especially The Simpsons’ Halloween Specials I suspect - has made it fairly common now, I guess through kids’ pester power. It’s still solely a kids thing, we don’t get people decorating their houses or having jack’o’lanterns outside them.
And as Sierra implies it handily fills a gap in the annual holiday schedule so retailers are pushing it for all they’re worth.
Traditionally, we Swedes celebrate All Saints Day (which is ironic, considering how staunchly Lutheran Sweden is). The tradition means that you visit the graves of (close) dead relatives, cover the ground with branches of spruce (to prepare for winter, I guess) and light candles in little lamps.
However, I have the same feeling that Askance has, i.e. the constant exposure of pumpkins and trick-or-treat in movies and tv makes kids want to celebrate, it coincides with the fall break from schools and shop owners want another excuse too sell cheapo toys. It exploded about 7 or 8 years ago, with grown-ups having parties on a Halloween theme, but has since calmed down and its just kids up to ten who keep pestering me for candy.
Trick or treat is not an English tradition* for fraks sake. The little bastards should be bobbing for apples not requesting free sweets.
Could an American fill us in on what the trick part is? I’d happily take part if I was allowed to hose the little freeloaders down instead of handing them goodies.
*Wikipedia says it is. It is not.
Damn right. I’d never even heard of it when I was a kid.
As Askance says, it wasn’t a thing here in the UK either until about 10-15 years ago.
But now the kids are forever hammering on your front door.
Small Clanger The trick bit is that if you don’t give the kids a treat you stand a very good chance of having a couple of eggs lobbed at your windows
My SO’s Mom lives in Luxembourg (she’s American) and has for the past 3 years. She took a group of kids out on the 30th for Trick or Treating. She said this was really the first year that Lux did something like that. Apparently, they revel more in All Saints Day than Halloween but are starting to discover the joys of dressing up and pimping yourself out for candy. 
This year I particularly noticed that shops in town [rural Ireland] were decked out with Halloween decorations, and several houses were too, shops have been selling Halloween paraphernalia for the last couple of months…
We get Trick or Treaters knocking on the door, begging for sweets…
I was in Ireland in late October/early November a few years ago, and my Irish cousin talked about taking his kids Trick or Treating.
I expressed some surprise, because I never thought that custom was popular in Ireland. My cousin agreed- it WASN’T done in Ireland when he was a kid, but it caught on in a big way a decade ago, and now it’s a big deal.
You’re correct. Irish immigrants brought Halloween to the USA. The Puritans who officially* founded the country frowned on Popish/Pagan practices, but their descendants were outnumbered by the immigrant hordes**.
Modern Trick or Treating evolved from Irish customs. And pumpkins were found to make better jack o’lanterns than turnips.
Bad news about Tricking: It’s what is done to the stingy souls who refuse to Treat. Shaving cream on the sidewalk, wrapping a house (tossing toilet paper into the trees) & smashing pumpkins are typical Tricks. In my mother’s day, overturning outhouses was popular.
- The colony at Jamestown predated Plymouth colony, but the dour Puritans & Pilgrims got more publicity.
** My ancestors were among those “immigrant hordes.” Some modern Americans think The Foreign Menace is a new thing.
Odd note–I’ve heard that Japan has embraced Halloween big time.
True/False?
In Germany, Hallowe’en has become reasonably well known in the last few decades, from the influence of US popular culture. Some Hallowe’en-themed goods in stores, a lot of Hallowe’en-themed parties (helped by the fact that the following day, All Saint’s day, is a public holiday in some states so you can sleep in), some trick-or-treating (but there are competing indigenous trick or treating traditions on Martini, New Year’s Eve and Epiphany). Also 31 October is Reformation Day and some Protestant spokesmen stress every year that this should be stressed - a lost cause as there are no Reformation Day parties…
I just wrote about this for my blog, about the Dominican Republic - here is an extract that answers the OP:
Last night I found myself chaperoning a ghoulish group of tots around the neighbourhood, in their quest for Halloween handouts.
I learned something new - trick or treat in Spanish is “dulce o truco” (sweet or trick). Our ragged little brigade of imps and demons was well prepared for receiving “dulces” but to my slight disappointment did not have any “trucos” up their sinister little sleeves.
Some houses obliged, while others simply said “no tengo” (haven’t got) without any fear of retaliation from the creepy contingent.
Not all Dominicans are that keen on Halloween. Some see it as an over-commercialised tradition that has been imposed from outside, which threatens to displace home-grown culture. Others are vaguely aware of its pagan roots, and through convoluted logic, conclude that it is a form of devil-worship. For both these reasons, some (but not all) schools choose to skirt the subject.
My son has been to three schools in the last three years. The first (and IMO best) school replaced Halloween with a ‘dress-up day’ where the children were asked to come in dressed up as their favourite literary character. The costumes were not to be bought, but home-made. In this way, the school manages to ignore Halloween, strike a blow for creativity, promote the love of reading, and snub consumer culture and over-commercialisation in general, while satisfying the children’s desire to dress up. Sadly, not all parents go along with the guidelines, and shop-bought superheroes and other commercial creations invariably end up making an appearance.
The second school did have some sort of celebration, fusing the harvest festival with Halloween, but did not make a huge song and dance of it either. This year, the third school had no active commemoration, although I’m not sure what the reasoning was.
In contrast, many businesses love it, and are happy to festoon their premises with pumpkins, witches, goblins and spiders webs many weeks in advance.
I don’t honestly know if India is into celebrating Halloween. I know they weren’t 12 years ago, but its been a long time.
We do have a similar day, called Kanj-kan (nasal n, both of them), which is exclusively for little girls. Little girls go around to their friends and neighbors but we don’t get just candy. We get halvah, and other sweets, and sometimes even money. I still keep my kanj-kanh rupees in a little bowl at home.
In Israel, practically nobody (except some Anglophones like me) even knows Halloween exists, much less celebrates it.
We do have a slightly similar holiday (that is, kids dress up in costumes, and some form of sweets distribution exists, although it bears little relationship to “trick or treat”-ing) called Purim, but it is celebrated mid to late February, not in October at all. The religious rationale behind the holiday is completely different, as well.
One aspect could be treat us or we’ll trick you - teens egging or TPing houses and smashing pumpkins if they’re not happy with the candy, or often for no reason. I generally try to scare 'em, as I remember being terrified of the headless man and the nutter with the chainsaw, which I suppose could be the trick. It doesn’t mean anything, really.
I heard from a friend of mine who used to teach there that it’s caught on - Japanese teens are really into costumes as it is. Cosplay (costume-play) is a hobby embraced by many anime fans and goes on even when it’s not Halloween.
(Plus half the stuff that Japanese teens wear seem like costumes anyway.)