Halloween 2025 — Tedium to the Left, Tedium to the Right

The Empires of Tedium

無奈江山

 

May the young people of China cast aside indifference, move ever upwards and ignore voices that might discourage them. Those who can, should take action, while those who can speak up should also do so. Don’t wait for some torch-bearer: shine forth with whatever inner light you possess; like fireflies you will pierce the darkness.

願中國青年都擺脫冷氣，只是向上走，不必聽自暴自棄者流的話。能做事的做事，能發聲的發聲。有一分熱，發一分光，就令螢火一般，也可以在黑暗裡發一點光，不必等候炬火。

During Shanghai’s ‘Halloween Carnival’ of late October 2023, a young man dressed in a traditional scholar’s gown and sporting a stage mustache, read out this passage from Lu Xun, China’s most famous and quotable twentieth-century writer. He was holding up a sign that read ‘Studying medicine won’t save the Chinese’, a well-known reference to Lu Xun’s youthful rejection of a career in medicine in favour of a life devoted to cultural creativity and polemical fireworks.

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Cosplay Lu Xun in full rhetorical flight, Shanghai, 31 October 2023

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China Heritage recorded the youthful celebration of Halloween in Shanghai in 2023. The following year, the revelry was restricted to specified venues, including Shanghai Disneyland. Costumes were policed and political and social commentary was ostensibly banned.

In the lead-up to Halloween 2025, one Shanghai venue published the following tongue-in-cheek promotion:

‘State of Halloween in Shanghai’, posted on Substack by Tina Kanagaratnam, 30 October 2025

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Contra Trump — America’s Empire of Tedium was launched on Halloween 2024, 31 October 2024. In anticipation of Donald J. Trump’s return to power, we titled our introductory chapter MAGADU — Kubla Khan, Xanadu & the 2024 American presidential election.

On 1 January 2024, China Heritage published Nutbush City Limits — 2024, Mao, Trump and China Heritage to mark what promised to be a momentous year in US and global politics. In it, we featured a reprint of A Monkey King’s Journey to the East, the meditation on Donald J. Trump and Mao Zedong with which we launched China Heritage on 1 January 2017. We also returned to the themes of Spectres & Souls, China Heritage Annual 2021, the subtitle of which was ‘Vignettes, moments and meditations on China and America, 1861-2021’.

Over the years, a recurring topic in our work has been the right to know and the need to lampoon. On Halloween 2024, we joined Randy Rainbow, one of America’s most artful political satirists, to mark the crescendo of the US presidential election cycle. Randy took as his theme Xanadu, Olivia Newton-John’s 1980 hit song, recast as MAGADU, the theme song of a country ruled over by MAGA, Make-America-Great-Again Republicans, ‘a place where nobody wants to go’.

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From its launch in 2024, Contra Trump — America’s Empire of Tedium has been ‘in dialogue’ with Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium, a project that has tracked the Xi Jinping era from its prehistory. In Chinese, I refer to both of these ‘empires’ as 無奈江山, realms where, for us, the theme is summed up in the expression ‘Hope, then? Hope forlorn’ (see 無可奈何 — So It Goes). We use 無奈 wúnài — an expression that can be translated as ‘it is what it is’ — in reference to Madezhda Madelstam’s remark that:

I shall not live to see the future, but I am haunted by the fear that it may be only a slightly modified version of the past.

As Clive James observed about Madelstam’s autobiographical work:

Hope Against Hope is about a gradual, reluctant but inexorable realization that despair is the only thing left to feel: it is the book of a process. Hope Abandoned is about what despair is like when even the memory of an alternative has been dispelled: the book of a result. The second book’s subject is spiritual desolation as a way of life. Several times, in the course of the text, Nadezhda proclaims her fear that the very idea of normality has gone from the world.

— Clive James, Cultural Amnesia (2007), p.416

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We refer both to Xi Jinping’s China and to Trump’s America as ‘empires of tedium’. That is to say, regardless of their formidable strengths, be they overlapping or contrasting, the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America are in a circuit of history from which they both may, eventually, grow out of or escape from. To achieve that velocity of positive change, however, requires the painstaking and tiresome work of facing the tedious realities of the past and the crippling realities of the present. For those mindful of American and Chinese socio-political change over the past sixty years, the recidivism of the 2020s is without question tedious, troubling and tenebrous. In both cases, the inevitable biological attrition that faces their respective ‘Great Men’ may promise a brighter future. Or not.

Given the haunting parallels between Trump’s USA and Xi Jinping’s Chinese Republic, we have repeatedly suggested that it is time for a new academic and journalistic analytical approach to the Sino-American conundrum. We’ll call it ‘Whataboutism Studies’, a somewhat different form of Both-Sidesism, and it explores how the Horseshoe Theory might offer a useful perspective on the bilateral Apache dance. The theory suggests that the right — in this case ‘American Fascism’ — and left — China’s state socialism bend toward each other like the ends of a horseshoe. Even though false equivalencies abound in US-China discussions, real equivalents deserve attention, in particular in the post-COVID era when political and economic pilgrims seek influence as New China Experts.

For more on the Empires of Tedium, see:

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To mark Halloween 2025, we reproduce Monster Mash — Mourning a Dead Premier & Mocking the Ghouls Among the Living, from 4 November 2023. The title of this joint chapter in Empires of Tedium is a reference to a stanza in Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson which reads:

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
   Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
   Rode the six hundred.

— Geremie R. Barmé
Editor, China Heritage
31 October 2025

‘Halloween’, in the hand of Lao Shu

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Recalling Halloween 2023

Monster Mash — Mourning a Dead Premier & Mocking the Ghouls Among the Living

被COS

Shanghai’s latest cosplay halloween was an ebullient continuation of a new tradition that has seen a commercial western festival transformed into a particular kind of Chinese mardi gras. In 2023, participants flocked into the streets with a verve heightened by popular relief following the long years of Covid lockdown along with a edgy frisson that reflected anxiety over the direction of the country.

As Zhang Lifan 章立凡, a Beijing based academic turned social commentator, observed:

The social temperament of the City of Wonderment [Shanghai] is in marked contrast to that found in the Imperial Capital [of Beijing]. People in both cities felt the need to let off steam: in Shanghai they did so with light-hearted caricature during Halloween, while in Beijing grief and anger ran beneath the surface of the national obsequies [for the recently deceased premier Li Keqiang].

魔都人的生活態度，的確與帝都人迥異。同樣是情緒發洩，上海人戲謔萬聖節，北京人悲憤國喪日。

Canny Party propagandists like Hu Xijin 胡錫進, a rogue pro-regime commentator and the former editor-in-chief of Global Times, China’s answer to FOX News, is a master of speaking out of both sides of his mouth. In the mode of Ah Q, Lu Xun’s famous literary creation, Hu attempted to grasp victory from the jaws of defeat by casting the rambunctious street celebrations as yet another victory for Chinese cultural self-confidence (see: 10月30日，@胡錫進: 又一個洋節萬聖節被中國的小青年們生生給「中國化」了。雖說裝扮者的身份有一些似是而非的議論，但那又咋樣？而且，誰敢保證這不是萬聖節全球變異的開始？所以啊，國人別怕洋節，小青年們過著過著就會把它們過走樣成中國的別一番模樣。).

For nearly four decades, we have commemorated Chinese ‘seeds of fire’ 火種 huǒ zhǒng of the kind that Lu Xun wrote about shortly before his death in 1936. China Heritage has also commented on various attempts made by Xi Jinping’s party-state to forge a ‘silent China’ while also recording some of the efforts people have made to resist the overall pall of quiescence. In late October 2023, for a heady moment in the streets of Shanghai, new seeds of fire generated pinpricks of light that pierced, if only for a moment, China’s man-made darkness.

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In 2023, All Hallows’ Eve, 萬聖節 wàn shèng jié in Chinese — a veritable carnival of cosplay 變裝 biànzhuāng, or ‘COS’ — was dubbed a ‘Carnival of Gags’ or ‘Multi-meme Mash-up’ 萬梗節 wàn gěng jié. Given the signature killjoy nature of Xi Jinping’s rule, it is probable that in 2024 Halloween will be mandated to promote more ‘healthy, uplifting and consumer-oriented’ themes.

Update, 17 November 2023: Radio Free Asia reported that many participants in the Halloween festivities, as well as those who posted short TikTok videos of the festive shenanigans, had been ‘invited to tea’, or cautioned, by the police. Internet companies that permitted the posting or circulation of cosplay videos were also taken to task for giving license to western cultural infiltration. RFA reported that, henceforth, nothing that was at odds with China’s ‘socialist core values’ would be tolerated during future festivities.

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From Xi Jinping’s Empire of Tedium:

Related Material:

梗 gěng, gag, spoof, jest, jape, in the hand of Mao Zedong

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I experienced a kind of déjà-vu, a repeat of 27 November last year at Urumqi Road: the crowds jostling shoulder to shoulder. Just like then, this time there were also a few brave outspoken souls, as well as lots of onlookers enjoying the spectacle. Halloween is when ghouls and spectres haunt the night and parade in the streets. This night everyone was out taking pictures of each other in their outfits, strolling along, chilling out… There was a palpable sense that people were not simply taking part in the festivities of Halloween. It was as though, after three years of lockdowns, enforced isolation, hospitalisations and dynamic Covid restrictions, not to mention the Blank Page protests [of November 2022], people had gone into the streets to enjoy themselves, to make fun of things as well as to express their anger and frustration about the absurdity of things, but with playful inventiveness. Young people were demonstrating a hunger for self-expression and freedom.

There was just this sudden collective realisation that, suddenly, they had a chance to express themselves freely and openly in the exuberant silliness of Halloween.

— ‘F’ in Yuan Li’s podcast. See 袁莉，這可能是上海最肆無忌憚的節日（文字版），《不明白播客》，2023年11月2日

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As crowds offered floral tributes in Hefei
Ghouls haunted the Shanghai night 

Liu Chan 劉蟾

Calligraphy by Liu Chan 劉蟾, 31 October 2023

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Over the last few days, people around the country have been mourning, though in some cases there have been road closures, particularly in the case of Hefei [in Anhui, the hometown of Li Keqiang] where large crowds made offerings of flowers. Some citizens even organised the delivery of chrysanthemums [an autumnal bloom traditionally used to commemorate the dead] from other parts of China for mourners to offer [outside Li’s old home]. The scene was moving yet marked by restraint.

By contrast in Shanghai on Halloween there was a variegated spectacle. Some people dressed up as ‘Big Whites’ [in reference to hazmat suits of Covid invigilators], there were even a few made up to look like Wu Jing [a famous cinematic ‘wolf warrior’]. All of the costumes and references were on point and they demonstrated what young people really think about things. It was truly a night during which deviltry was unleashed. I was absolutely delighted by it all.

— Dasheng Liu Chan, 31 October 2023

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Reports on and Videos of Halloween in Shanghai, October 2023:

Monster Mash

群魔乱舞：1966

A conga line of political grotesques, attributed to the cartoonist Weng Rulan (翁如蘭, 1944-2012).

‘A Dunciad’, January 1967

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群魔乱舞：1988

A comical cultural parade featured in the film The Troubleshooters

(Watch from minute 30:00)

Note: Monster Mash is a 1962 novelty song by Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett. It was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on 20-27 October of that year, just before Halloween and has been a perennial Halloween favorite ever since. The first two verses of the song are:

I was working in the lab, late one night
When my eyes beheld an eerie sight
For my monster from his slab, began to rise
And suddenly to my surprise

He did the mash, he did the monster mash
The monster mash, it was a graveyard smash
He did the mash, it caught on in a flash
He did the mash, he did the monster mash

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Alarums & Excursions

Shanghai, 31 October 2023

危言聳聽

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An alternative Lu Xin: ‘Studying medicine won’t save the Chinese.’

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Winnie the Pooh

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‘Big Whites’, hazmat suits and  Shanghai’s trauma

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‘Drop dead! Love from Shanghai’ — remembering Middle Urumqi Road, November 2022

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‘Every breath you take’

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‘An unspoken message’

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A funereal wreath (for those who died as a result of the Covid epidemic, as well as for the recently deceased former premier Li Keqiang)

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Flying

TrackTribe

Flying was one of the unofficial theme songs of Shanghai Halloween 2023

[Verse 1]

Fly so high I’m hypnotized
What’s up is down what’s left is right
Chasing stars and holding you
I can’t see the end but we’ll see it through

[Chorus]

Flying
Get on board
We’re smiling
On top of the world

[Verse 2]

Dangerous times don’t fly too high
Be sure to keep the ground in sight
Fly forever if you keep it tight
Love the world but keep the sky on your mind

[Chorus]

Flying
Get on board
We’re smiling
On top of the world
Flying
Get on board
We’re smiling
On top of the world

Li Keqiang’s Melancholic Exit

A funerary couplet composed by former university classmates of Li Keqiang 

In all things the people should come first

萬事民為先

We remember the grand ambition we shared studying together at Peking University during that golden age, our energies focussed on how to create a better world

憶燕園時光欣逢黃金歲月砥礪奮發後立修齊治平鴻鵠志

As our ways now part we mourn that you were never truly able to realise the dreams of our generation, your bequest is the unrequited hopes for the nation

傷今朝永別惜君長オ末展一代夢斷惟遺家國天下不了情

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‘Reversing the Tide is Forbidden’. The sign held by a Halloween reveller sporting a Red Guard armband was a reference to Li Keqiang’s September 2022 statement that ‘China’s reform and opening-up will continue to move on. The Yellow River and Yangtze River will not flow backward.’