International Tutors' Magazine December 2018 | Page 8

INTERNATIONAL TUTORS’ MAGAZINE
THE RESURRECTED,
THE REINCARNATED
AND
THE RECYCLED:
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2018
photo on opposite page by Annie Yung, others by Gabriel Franchi
Left to right: Fel
Castañeda introduces
Dia de los Muertos;
the ITs show off their
traditional calavera
(skull) costumes.
Opposite page:
Students work
together to prepare an
eco-friendly costume.
Dia de los Muertos, literally translated from
Spanish to mean “Day of the Dead”, is an
annual celebration spent in honour of those
souls which have long since passed. The
festival, usually taking place on the 2nd of
November every year, was pulled early by a
couple days in the Arthur Samy
Language Learning Centre,
held from 6 to 9 pm on the
30th of October. Upon the
eve of Halloween, as the
moon shone down upon
EdUHK, there was a whisper
heard in the ASLLC. That whisper
soon erupted into dozens of clamouring
voices as the International Tutors
announced, “Let Dia de los Muertos begin!”
backgrounds were celebrating an event
which was not native to Hong Kong,
and everyone (even behind their masks)
was smiling. Skeletons took pictures with
witches who laughed with black cats. It was
all so different and new. As we separated
into our groups, the tutors
introduced the main activity
of the night: the Dia de los
Muertos Costume Contest.
"Let Dia de
los Muertos
begin!"
SPOOKY SPIRITS
AND
SUSTAINABILITY
Each group was to choose
a deceased celebrity to
bring back to life. They would
use recycled materials to dress up a model
and recreate the celebrity. Sustainability
and environmental protection were
core messages of the festivity. We
had to use materials which were long
“dead” (cardboard, plastics, shopping
bags, old clothes) to help reincarnate
people from the past - the perfect irony.
When entering, each guest was marked with
a lime green number ranging from 1 to 10
to decide which group they were going to
be sorted into. And in the middle of this is
where I found myself, with a green number
“4” screaming on my hand. Students and
tutors of all different cultural and ethnic
My group was an interesting bunch.
Kazakh students mixed with Pakistani,
BY AAMENAH KHURRAM
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