Innocent trick-or-treating lives on in China

One of the most entertaining and most intelligent accounts on X is the stuffed-bear-themed pseudonymous account of a Chinese-American former head of China research of a large investment bank. (I don't make up the rules.) He writes on X:

The West is now busily destroying its own civilisation.

If anything of value is to survive, it must become Chinese. The West is a spent force.

Science, classical music, the classics, Western architecture… these are already being sustained by Chinese practitioners.

This is of course an incredible statement and I have no intention of passing judgement on it today. I will say I saw small evidence of this playing out tonight on Halloween. Buildings and neighborhoods across Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland were swamped with trick-or-treaters of all ages, out in force. In my neighborhood, people opened their houses to strangers to give away treats and parents drove around vans while their costumed children handed candy out of the sunroof.

Some parents were happy to let their young children go out on their own while others joined in the fun. Which was conspicuously absent was the fear for the safety that had already started to appear in the 90s in the suburbs when I was a child. The stories about bad people handing out candy that was drugs to children and the warnings to not eat any candy until parents could inspect each piece. I see today that American cities recommend that parents search sexual predator registries so that they know which houses to avoid.

I'm sure there are still nicer suburbs in the West where this sort of Halloween celebration is possible, but it's hard to imagine this sort of innocent Halloween celebration happening in violent and drug-ridden Western cities, where even the safety of adults in broad daylight is questionable. Thankfully, this Western tradition, one of my favorites, has been adopted by and lives on in China.