Just check the events calendar. Napa Valley Wine Bar has all you can eat pizza nights for Halloween week. (Halloween decorations, games, board games and candle lit dinner tables too :)

About the meaning of Halloween, it's all commercialized. Just like Christmas. Plus some places in the US can be an absolute bore too with Halloween. What's important, just like with Christmas and thanksgiving is to share it with friends, have a fun time and enjoy it with some good food and drinks in my opinion.

If I knew people had time off (which people don't as they work and teach also in the weekend) and there would be a lot of people coming we'd have a masked ball or something classy with real atmosphere.

I don't think it's right to criticize an American/ Irish holiday in a country where they barely introduced the hamburger.

I never meant to criticise a holiday that is relevant to the Irish or Americans, sorry if I gave that impression.

Your comment about the commercialisation of holidays is part of what I meant about it being sad when the meaning is lost. The things you said which are important are the 'what', not the 'why'.
I personally think that someone celebrating a festival without knowing the meaning is diminishing & demeaning that festival.
What if you were hosting a party to celebrate your engagement or birth of your child, and someone says, "I don't care, I just want to get drunk & hit on the chicks"?
I would be quite unimpressed, but maybe that's just me.

Yes, you're absolutely right about that Quester. I don't agree with that mentality at all (I met plenty people like that in the past. They'd fly out through my door without having opened it first.) But when you are limited in your means and people, you just have to make the best of it :) Especially when you're in a "strange" country. I think being with family and friends is more important then than a festival's original meaning. In the past it was that kind of mentality which made the people in remote countries like Australia and New Zealand stronger.

It is true that when we are in a different country it is important to often have simple community (for community's sake alone) with loved ones and compatriots. However, coming from the "remote" Down Under myself, I found that when I am out of my home culture I sometimes cling to it even more, especially at festival times. For me it actually reinforces the significance and meaning of the cultural festivals when they come around. So especially at those times, when we hang out with loved ones we remember and celebrate our culture and the significance of the particular festival. And then at other times we can also try to learn about and celebrate local festivals too.

PS: although it isn't listed on the events calendar anymore, all you can eat pizza with drinks continues this whole weekend :)

If interested we have Satuday evening a special VIP wine tasting with lecture (incl. all you can eat pizza on top for free)
We have a few spaces available. This is NOT a public event, so reservation is required. (18687190314)

"how would it be relevant to people in Kunming?"

People in Kunming and every other place in China have been deprived of the traditional beliefs and celebrations that shaped the Chinese society since a few decades ago, so they probably don't really know what to cling on to and unfortunately now learn to celebrate without acknowledging the meanings of the festivals that they hear about as long as it means having a good time with family and friends. Even Mid-Autumn festival itself, one of the most important Chinese celebrations, has only been made official a couple of years ago.

Yes, tragic. So, celebrating Western festivals with them, will we perpetuate that? Or will we introduce the meaning as well as the forms of the Western festivals we celebrate with them?

Hey, in my hometown the Chinese New Year is celebrated by all the local Chinese and even the British community are beginning to join in. The Scottish tradition of halloween moved across the water, when I was a kid in UK we did not have trick or treat, we only saw it on American TV, and we never had pumpkins (we had to make do with a turnip. Now in the UK we do the whole American halloween thing. And in America now, halloween costumes are no longer related to ghouls and ghosts, people dress up as anything (superheroes, aliens, cartoon characters, etc.).
Nothing ever stays the same.

I'm pro any festival where children are smiling.

Turnips were the original halloween veg, not pumpkin. Pumpkin came later.

It occurred to me that i was wrong to say earlier that halloween and mid-autumn festival are the same. Although both are harvest festivals and originally celebrated in more or less the same way, a major difference is that the celtic one, now known as halloween, also marked the new year.
Celts have nothing to do with saints. The former preceeded the latter by at least 10.000 years, and probably a lot more.