Our Fault

On Saturday, more than 150 teens and young adults were crushed in Seoul, South Korea, after a weekend Hallowe'en celebration turned into a stampede in the trendy Itaewon district. There are many narrow streets in this neighbourhood, north of the Han River.

After my initial shock and sorrow, I thought to myself, since when did Koreans celebrate Hallowe'en? And then my mouth dropped.

Oh, God, it's our fault.

In 1997, DW and I were teaching English in Chŏnju, South Korea. Our students ranged from elementary-school-aged kids to university students and some adults. It was a good mix of people and, for the most part, we enjoyed working with them all.

Hallowe'en fell on a Friday, in 1997, and we decided that we would introduce our western tradition with the kids. We had learned from our secretaries, that morning, that they didn't know what Hallowe'en was and it was a festival that wasn't celebrated in their country.

DW and I decided that we would introduce it to our young students. We would introduce them to new words, like pumpkin, witches, ghosts, and monsters. We explained how kids would dress up in scary costumes and collect candies from neighbours by saying "trick or treat" at the front doors.

We then gave each student some construction paper and crayons, and instructed them how to make a mask, making one for ourselves as we directed them. They could draw any mask that they wanted, and when it was ready, we would help them cut holes for the eyes, mouth, and nose, as need be, as well as cut off any unwanted parts of the paper. We'd use string and tape to hold the masks in place, and we'd get each student to explain what they were.

I would then send my students to DW's classroom, to knock on the door and say "trick or treat." DW would do the same with her kids, sending them to me. We would hand out treats to each kid and then we had a Hallowe'en party throughout the institute, with the other teachers and their students participating.

It was our fault. We introduced Korean kids to Hallowe'en.

That evening, we met up with our fellow ex-pats at Urban Bar, and we were surprised to see all our fellow teachers were dressed in costumes. The Koreans in the bar were not dressed for Hallowe'en and many had told us that they had never heard of this holiday.

We gave them an education.

In 1998, Hallowe'en fell on a Saturday. One of our friends, who we knew from Ottawa but who was actually working in Seoul at the time, came down to Chŏnju to visit us for the weekend. The teachers from my university, who also lived in the same apartment building as DW and I, were having a party on our shared floor, and from there we were going to head to TwoBeOne, another popular ex-pat bar that offered live music.

You can read more about that evening, here, but suffice to say, no Koreans celebrated that evening and looked at us like we were freaks (being in drag, I particularly caught people's attention). At the very least, though, we introduced a lot of Koreans to our western holiday.

In the 24 years that have passed since that evening, I can't imagine how many English teachers have come and gone, introducing our customs and traditions to Koreans, young and old, including Hallowe'en. It seems to have rubbed off on our students, who have seemingly embraced the ritual and may have passed it on to their kids.

Almost like a virus.

I don't mean to trivialize what happened, yesterday, in Seoul. Learning of the crush of people and the loss of life for so many is truly devastating. My heart goes out to the people who are dealing with their trauma and injuries and the families who lost loved ones.

But it makes me wonder: what if we hadn't instructed our students to make masks? What if we hadn't dressed up, ourselves, and wandered the streets of our city on October 31?

Would those people be alive today?