This week I am doing a Halloween lesson for my students. I made a costume which includes a bandanna, a mask cut from cardboard packaging, an inside-out yellow t-shirt, and a cape (some random flag I found in my desk). It looks quite funny. Most of the third year students have seen it, but the younger students haven't seen it yet. I think I'll wear it all day tomorrow. I've just been wearing it just for classes so far.

I originally made it for a Halloween party I attended on Saturday. One student's mother is an English teacher at a private cram school. She asked if I would help out at the school's Halloween party. I wore the costume to the party, because it just wouldn't be Halloween otherwise. I asked if the students would have costumes, and she said that wasn't a Japanese tradition. I pointed out that Halloween wasn't a Japanese tradition either, but they were doing a Halloween party. So I think she told the students to dress up in simple costumes if they wanted to. About half of the students were dressed up. Most of the girls were witches, and a lot of boys were ninjas or pirates. I was pretty impressed at their costumes for probably not having done it before.

The party had two parts. The first party was younger elementary kids who were not that good at English. Then there was a party for the older kids, some of whom were students at my junior high school. They thought it was quite funny to see me all dressed up. I think they didn't know it was me for a little while. First they did short skits for us, then we did a skit to explain trick-or-treating to them. We played conversation games to get them talking, then we did a modified trick-or-treating. Another ALT was there, so there were three of us (the Japanese teacher, Nate, and myself). We each had a bucket of candy, and the students came up to us and said trick-or-treat. But before they got candy, they had to answer a question. It was good practice for them, plus they had to say "thank you" afterwards.

After the party, we were invited to have dinner with her family. The food was pretty good, but talking with them was the best part. It is good to talk to Japanese people in private. They don't really open up in big groups. At the end I got paid 5000 yen ($40), which I really wasn't expected. Japanese people love to give gifts like that.