A street in Itaewon district is pictured full of people before a stampede during Halloween festivities in Seoul, on Oct 30, 2022. - Reuters
SEOUL (The Straits Times/Asia News Network): Halloween will never be the same again in South Korea. It may even be remembered as Hell-o-ween, after 156 people died and scores more were injured in a horrific crowd crush last Saturday (Oct 29) while attending parties in Seoul’s nightlife hub Itaewon ahead of the celebration that falls on Oct 31.
For the first time in years, there were no boisterous kids in costumes roaming my neighbourhood squealing “Trick or Treat?” when Halloween rolled round on Monday.
Nor were there any parties in the homes of the fellow foreigners who live here in Hannam-dong, adjacent to Itaewon.
Both areas are located within the central Yongsan district of Seoul, home to over 19,000 foreigners, including expatriates, diplomats and me.
Halloween comes to life in these two areas every year, with many homes and shopfronts decorated with ghostly figures, creepy crawlies, jack-o’-lanterns and more.
Even at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic when gathering numbers were restricted, the community kept the annual tradition going by being extra careful with crowd control and frequent hand sanitising.
This year, however, the streets were eerily quiet, everyone mindful of the week-long national mourning period for the victims, many of whom were in their 20s and gone too soon.
In a move dubbed “Erasing Halloween”, businesses big and small removed all Halloween-related products, promotions, events and even decorations.
It’s as if South Korea never celebrated the festival, which is an imported tradition anyway.
First introduced by missionaries and celebrated by American soldiers stationed here with their families, Halloween became known to Korean people after clubs and bars in Itaewon started to host festive parties in the 1990s.
That was a time when young foreigners started to move to South Korea, many of them from the United States and Europe, to teach English at a growing number of private English academies.
These foreigners were naturally drawn to Itaewon, home to many soldiers deployed at a major US army base nearby.
For many of them, the area offered a rare taste of home – from American burgers to Irish pubs, Santori-themed restaurants and, of course, Halloween.
As South Korea opened up to the world in the wake of the Hallyu boom in the 2000s, Halloween has since been commercialised by businesses to target young consumers who love anything fun and cool, while kindergarten teachers use the opportunity to bring some costumed fun to their classes.
Young Koreans now celebrate Halloween in the same way Singapore, Japan, and Hong Kong do, and many head to Itaewon in costumes for the ultimate Halloween party experience.
As many as 200,000 people joined the festivities in Itaewon back in 2017, but everything was in order.
Even tourists were drawn to Halloween in Itaewon with borders reopening post-Covid, after the festival was featured in the 2020 hit drama Itaewon Class.
In an episode of the Netflix series, costumed vampires, ghost brides, pirates and maids are seen in the scenes of Itaewon, accompanied by a female narrator’s voice explaining how “people enjoy a festival from America here” every year.
“Apparently they try to comfort the spirits of the dead and ward off evil spirits,” she says.
“People are dressed in strange costumes and bizarre makeup, so evil spirits won’t do them harm. A lot of grown-ups enjoy this festival in funny costumes.
“It feels like you’re in a foreign country. And everyone looks so free... And I fell in love with this place.”
She speaks for many young Koreans, who enjoy Halloween in Itaewon because it is deemed exotic, trendy and different.
For me, Halloween is a time for home parties and for my horror-loving daughter to get creative about costumes.
We jumped at an invitation from a fellow Singaporean to go trick-or-treating at the nearby US army base when we first moved here in 2015, and never looked back.
I even took over the helming of an annual neighbourhood event last year and turned the street in front of my house into Trunk or Treat alley, with adults in costumes standing by their spookily decorated car boots and giving out candies to children who stop by.
My own car was decked out in Squid Game theme; my daughter was a gun-toting pink soldier.
Her costumes have become more spooktacular over the years, from mere princess Elsa in 2015, to puppet Marionette of Five Nights at Freddy’s in 2020, complete with a hand-drawn mask.
This year, she had planned to reprise her 2019 Halloween character, Sadako from The Ring, climbing out of a Sony TV set.
But the moment we got news of the tragic crowd crush, we knew Halloween was doomed.
My daughter’s school cancelled their celebration plans, and everyone stayed home on the night of Oct 31.
All the fun associated with the festival has been sucked out, replaced with gloom and sadness.
No one knows if the festivities will return to Itaewon.
It will be a shame if the tradition is erased for good, but scars need to heal first and the authorities need time to figure out how to make Itaewon a safer place for revellers, without the worry of another crowd crush.
