This content was first published by Radio Free Asia, and it is now being reprinted with permission.
As the government cracked down on those who used the drop event to criticize the Chinese Communist Party, criticize the state of the world, or just have fun in Shanghai, thousands of people braved the weather and defied an established restrictions to dress as Batman and Buddha for Halloween on the weekends.
Despite the presence of extensive police forces in the downtown area, video footage captured a sizable group of mostly younger people wearing umbrellas, some in costumes, cheering on their fellow citizens and recording their performances on their phones. In separate videos, parties were shown being taken away, some in complete wardrobe.
Video and photos uploaded to the Instagram account @drinkdownccp captioned” Halloween in Shanghai” showed people dressed in a huge variety of dress outfits including a Chinese emperor and his wife, Jesus in an LED ring, the scissor-toting eponymous figure from the 2007 Japanese dread video” Carved: The Slit-Mouthed Woman”, No Experience from the Hayao Miyazaki manga hit” Spirited Away” and Huawei smartphones.
Police, urban management officials and business owners in downtown Huangpu district last week warned of” strict controls” on cosplay activities, saying anyone breaking the rules would be subject to” coercion” if they did n’t lose their make-up or costume when told to remove it by the authorities.
Individuals were banned from wearing costumes and complex make-up in common, while buildings in the area are also banned from displaying any type of Halloween design, including bats, pumpkins, ghosts, coffins and skeletons, while “horror or violence-related elements” will not be allowed, according to a mandate from local authorities.
Yet many defied the ban, often to make a point to the authorities, according to social media footage and photos posted from the streets of Shanghai, which saw , mass protests against the government , as recently as November 2022.
In one photo, someone wears a mask emblazoned with the words” save the leeks”! in reference to online slang that describes regular Chinese people as resources that are used or seized for their own ends. Two people turn up dressed as Lenin and Stalin, waving to the crowd.
In another sign of public dissent linked to the , flagging economy, a young woman dresses as” the Ghost of Poverty”, wearing a sign that reads “whatever you try, there’s still no money”.
Another reveler dresses in a traditional robe referencing the 1919 , May 4th youth movement, carrying a copy of the , New Youth , magazine used by young people to express political dissent, another as the Statue of Liberty, while another holds a sign that reads” Police warning: homosexuals”! in a likely reference to , recent crackdowns , on the LGBTQ+ community.
Another clip from the same account features a person dancing to the 1978 song” Y. M. C. A.” by the Chinese Communist Party youth organization Young Pioneers in a Trump mask.
Police on patrol and a line of police minibuses parked along a street in Shanghai’s downtown area were captured on Reuters video footage from the weekend.
” Unless they’re from Happy Valley or Disney, costumes and make-up are not allowed”, a young woman says in a social media video clip circulating at the weekend, in a reference to China’s chain of homegrown amusement parks. particularly when it comes to particular neighborhoods in the center of town.”
” There’s no way they’re letting anyone do that”.
Another person dressed as former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is taken away from a store by security guards in a separate social media clip, according to a commentator who reads,” Trump gets chased by security guards”!
A Shanghai resident who used only the surname Wang to avoid being identified as a reprisal claimed that he saw several people being taken away by the police.
” Some of the women were wearing Qing Dynasty costumes, while some men were dressed as emperors”, Wang said. ” They were all taken to the police station”.
” The main reason is that they’re afraid that too many people will gather”, he said. ” They get particularly worried about large gatherings, particularly spontaneous ones”.
A Taiwanese national who runs bars in Shanghai’s Jing’an district and Julu Road, where much of the cosplaying took place, said they had been contacted by police last week and warned not to encourage any Halloween-themed activities.
” The local police told us … there were to be no Halloween activities, no displays, and nobody in weird costumes, on pain of them shutting the bars down”, the person said. ” It was so sad”.
Some cosplayers gathered in Hangzhou, a one-hour high-speed railway trip away, after social media posts suggested it as an alternate venue to Shanghai, propelling” Halloween in Hangzhou” to the top of social media search results. According to social media footage, some cosplayers there were also asked to remove their costumes and have them taken away by the police for questioning.
Similar scenes were reported in Dongshankou, the artists ‘ district of Guangzhou.
Many young people view costumes as a way to express dissatisfaction with the government, according to a resident of the southern province of Guangdong who feared reprisals by using only the surname Chen.
” Dongshankou is a downtown area, and part of the old city”, Chen said. ” The costumes they wear express dissatisfaction, and such dissatisfaction can easily evolve into a demonstration”.
” The government fears this more than anything”, he said. Under the current regime, which has” so many sore points and sensitive topics,” so many images are sensitive.
One sensitive topic appeared to be the fact that Sunday marked the anniversary of former premier Li Keqiang’s death, which prompted a , wave of spontaneous national mourning , that many saw as an indirect criticism of Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping ‘s , handling of the economy.
Local residents ‘ social media posts claimed that police were patrolling the streets in the area of Li’s former residence in downtown Hefei, the capital of the eastern province of Anhui, where residents had left a year ago, in exchange for thousands of floral tributes.
Authorities in Anhui and the provinces of Henan canceled two significant marathon events that were originally scheduled for Oct. 27 due to implausible “reasons,” moving them to early November instead.
