October 31, 2016 in Jishou, China — Just before my 23rd birthday several months ago I began the practice of daily journaling. Unlike a few other habit implementation flops I’ve had in 2016 (read: new years resolutions), this habit didn’t require any concerted effort. I simply liked it, so I kept doing it.

The benefits of journaling are myriad. You can read about them elsewhere or take my word for it. I wanted my students to realize these benefits, so I distributed journals and assigned them to write 5 English sentences per day.

Outside of the classroom, I resume my role as a student. And to practice what I teach, I too have been writing 5 Chinese sentences each day. Sometimes 5 sentences turns into an essay… I want to translate and share today’s entry.

Halloween Capitalism

I was a Halloween-oholic growing up. Candy and costumes were daily practices for me, so a whole day celebrating these was pretty much the best thing ever. As I think back now, Halloween taught me one of my first lessons in capitalism. The better I trick-or-treated, the more candy I could earn. It’s simple economic incentives, which are a fundamental assumption of capitalism.

Although all the mad scientists, ninjas and hobos wanted to get as much candy as they could, at the end of the night they each took home a different amount. Because some kids trick-or-treated more effectively than others, they thus received more candy. However, there is another reason lurking, which is that different trick-or-treaters live in different neighborhoods. Any savvy monster or ghoul knows that bigger houses likely yield bigger candy.

I was a tremendously lucky child. My town was middle-class and safe. And before my friends and I were allowed to go out on our own, my mom would chaperone and even chauffeur us when we exhausted a given area’s resources. Like I said, I was a Halloween-oholic. I would usually fill my whole pillowcase with candy. I’d go home, spread out my loot and organize it by it’s value (from chalky necco wafers all the way up to full size hershey bars). October would turn to November and even as the candy connoisseur that I was, some of my precious candy would inevitably go to waste.

Between candy inequality and trick-or-treating beyond one’s needs, I can’t help but to think of my fond Halloween as being a tad bittersweet.