Last weekend, October 28 and 29, I had the chance to see a good section of rural Guangdong Province. With some of my colleagues I travelled from Shenzhen, where I live, to the towns of Jiang Men, Tai Shan, and Kai Ping. I have a lot of friends from those places, so they were anxious for me to see their hometowns. We went there on business with a bunch of other people in our entourage.

Immediately we got to Jiang Men, I noticed how clean the city was, and I commented on this. You had to look hard to find any scrap of paper or cigarette butt anywhere. It turns out that there is an annual competition for the "cleanest city" award, and the citizens of Jiang Men want to win it-again. The place literally sparkled. Honestly, I have never seen so clean an urban area.

In all three towns, we met a lot of wonderful people, and as always, the minute they saw this foreigner, they did a double-take. There just aren't that many outsiders in these parts, so my presence on the bus or in the town square always excites curiosity-even in urban Shenzhen. One of my friends asked, "Do you mind being stared at?" I answered no. Being stared at comes with the territory. I just hope I always have the appearance of someone kind and respectable.

Late Sunday evening, we left the area to return to Shenzhen, but first we stopped in the capitol of Guangzhou. The first time I ever went to Guangzhou, I was excited because the famous Pearl River runs right through the middle of the city. We ate at a wonderful restaurant where I have been before-The Greenery. It is kind of a nightclub with good Chinese and American food, plus a live band and a dance floor. On this night, after we finished supper, our hosts said they had some family business to attend to in Guangzhou and would need to leave me and Shelley, my assistant, at the restaurant for an hour and a half. She and I were both dead tired and wanted to get back to Shenzhen, but it appeared that we had about 90 minutes to kill before we would head back home.

As we sat there wondering what to do, we tried to talk but were annoyed by the presence throughout the club of loud hammering noises and people partying. Upon closer observation, we saw about ten people, all dressed in full-lenth white costumes, complete with hoods over their heads. The white fabric of their costumes was painted with black skeleton bones, skulls, ghosts, goblins, and monsters. When we asked, they told us that this was the second of four nights of Hallowe'en celebrations, and that these ten folks were employees of the restaurant-waiters, waitresses, cooks, and so on. It was their party. They were dancing the Macarena.

I suggested to Shelley that we move to some chairs closer to the dance floor in order to watch the festivities and listen to the music, the best of which was provided by a young saxophone player of extraordinary talent, back by a drummer and an electric guitar for rhythm. As we sat there, one of partiers gave us one of the hammer noisemakers and two simple masks that covered our eyes. They also gave us some of those flourescent tubes that you can either bend into loops around your neck and wrists, or wave in the air like sticks. We were having fun clapping to the beat of the music and watching the dancers.

Pretty soon, a very tall ghost danced over my way, took me by the hand, and pulled me up out of my chair and onto the dance floor. I followed willingly because I have always loved to dance. As this ghost took my hand, and as we danced, I realized that he was a guy, although I could not see any part of him for his floor-length costume and hood. But the roughness of his hand gave him away. I danced with all ten of the costumed folks. Shelley sat with our personal belongings and equipment.

Then it was Shelley's turn. As I sat with all our stuff, she stepped onto the dance floor and danced with everybody. We were having a blast. We thus traded back and forth dancing and watching for half an hour. Then someone, unseen to me, came up to me from behind and placed a Chinese reed hat on my head. It was the round kind with the high middle point on top that you see worn by farmers and others who work in the hot sun. So now I had the face mask and the hat. I danced some more with my new costume.

Then someone gave me one of the hoods that covered my complete head. It was hot inside, but it was fun to have on so much of a costume. It was the same white fabric with a skull painted in black. The fun of all this was that is was spontaneous. When we began our trip, we had no idea this was how we would be spending out evening in Guangzhou. I had completely forgotten it was Hallowe'en. I didn't even know that anybody in China celebrated Hallowe'en! And what made it even more fun is that the costumes and the good-will of the occasion erased the usual age and gender and racial barriers that we usually deal with in life. Everybody danced with everybody and just had a fun time. It was marvelous. It was grand.

Eventually the moment arrived when our hosts called us on the mobile phone and said they were waiting for us outside in the car. We began to take our leave of our friends, who begged us not to go. We explained that we had no choice and that we had to get back to Shenzhen at a reasonable hour because of work the next morning (Monday). As we left, I turned around and blew everybody a big kiss with a large arcing motion of my hand and arm. In return, they all blew a kiss back to us! They gave us the masks, the hood, the flourescent sticks and loops, and the noisemaker hammer.

On the freeway to Shenzhen, I looked through the car window at the sky, and there low in the south was Orion-my special constellation.