There is an episode of the American sitcom ‘How I Met Your Mother’ that deals with Halloween. Ted Mosby, who is a typical American man, is the main actor of this sitcom. The sitcom reveals the story in a way where he tells the story to his children of how he met their mom. Robin, Barney and a married couple, Marshall and Lily, who are Ted’s friends, are also main characters. This sitcom shows their experiences very honestly and comically.
  On Halloween, Ted entered a store that rents costumes in order to find a woman who had worn a pumpkin costume and had met him 10 years ago on Halloween. The store rents not only costumes of pumpkins, but also everything for disguising someone like monsters, characters in cartoons or movies and ghosts. On that day, many people disguised themselves in horrible or funny costumes and enjoyed their parties by drinking or playing outside.
  Many people dress peculiarly for Halloween parties. Why do they do that? October 31st, or Halloween, originated from the Samhain festival that was a Celtic custom from about 500 B.C. The Celts believed that the first day of the year was Novermber 1st and that the spirits of dead people stayed in other people’s bodies for one year. Also, they believed dead people’s sprits selected the body on the last day of the year that they would stay in for a year. In order to prevent from being entered by dead people’s spirits, people disguised themselves like ghosts and made their houses cold. This custom was the origin of Halloween.
  In Halloween parties, children also disguise themselves as witches, pirates and characters from cartoons, and they receive chocolates and candies at every door by saying, “Trick or treat”. In the sitcom’s Halloween episode, children visited the new home of Lily and Marshall. They gave the children scissors, a stapler and wine by mistake. When they opened the door again to go outside, the children threw eggs at their door, and this scene evokes laughter.
  Nowadays, the number of people who enjoy Halloween parties is increasing in Korea. Also, for this Halloween, there were parties at some amusement parks and event-halls in hotels. If we know the origin of Halloween and what the meaning is, it will be more meaningful rather than imitating Halloween in foreign countries just because it looks enjoyable.
 

By Kyeong So-hyeon | sh34@cbnu.ac.kr