Parts of Beijing seemed like ghost towns over the weekend -- no, not deserted, but populated with ghost-like figures.

Never mind that Halloween fell on a Monday today this year. It was the perfect excuse for a three-day binge for party-goers.
 
And never mind that it's meant to be a festival celebrated in the United States, Canada, and the British Isles by children going door to door while wearing costumes and begging treats and playing pranks.

In Beijing, like in other major cities in China, it was a good time for adult expatriates or visitors to let their hair down and be like kids.

It was not just foreigners, though, in the celebrating mood. More than half the revellers in the capital's bar areas Sanlitun, Dashanzi and Wudaokou were Chinese, who have in recent years taken to events like Valentine's Day and Halloween in right earnest.

"Halloween may be children's time in the West, but here it is party time for young adults, like at Christmas," said 27-year-old Zhang Yijing, who was dressed in a Spiderman's costume.

"It is the sheer business of happiness. Nothing to do with culture. I have just given my grandparents gifts for the Chinese traditional Double Ninth Festival for the elderly," said "Spiderman" Zhang.

And sheer business of happiness it was, too.

More than 200 "phantoms" in scary, sexy and funny costumes were waiting impatiently on Saturday night to enter Yen Club in the city's art neighbourhood of Dashanzi.

Inside, the club was packed with about 300 "ghosts" and since they were in no mood to call it a night, it was a miserable wait in the cold for those outside. "I am starting to feel cold now," said a Brazilian who called himself Joe and dressed in a way "to show the hot men in the hot nation."

It was not just the nightspots raking in the money markets like the one in Hongqiao have in the past fortnight been selling "pumpkins" of all shapes and colours, plastic swords, superhero costumes, scary masks and vampire teeth, at prices ranging for 5 yuan (60 US cents) to 100 yuan (US$12).

Throughout the weekend, dance floors were also bouncing at nightspots at Sanlitun, the city's old bar area, and Wudaokou, the emerging entertainment centre near the Peking and Tsinghua universities.

(China Daily October 31, 2005)