Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. This is no secret. I included this information in the first line of the bio I wrote for this site, and last year I posted so many Halloween posts that my dad made fun of me. Since it´s October, that means I can start celebrating, right??

While searching for something else, I came across an email I wrote back in 2006, when I was a bright-eyed English teacher in Jiaxing, China. It feels very appropriate in the context of my current obsession with China – Latin America relations. What follows is an edited version of that note.

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Our textbook contains a Frida Kahlo painting called El Camion, which has 6 people waiting for a bus, including Frida herself, a young boy, a mother with a baby. The relationships between the people are ambiguous, and there is a lot to discuss in the painting.

I chose 6 students to act out the painting.

I had the rest of the class interview the people in the painting.  The funniest response was when one of the men (who in the picture wears a suit and holds a bag, presumably of money) explained that he was a professional murderer.  Frida (who, as I explained to the students, was a very ill woman with an unhappy marriage) tried to contract his services to kill her husband.  It was soooooooooooo funny!  To add to the drama, Frida was on her way home from the supermarket and was carrying only eggs.  So she wanted to know how many eggs it would cost for one quick murder.

And at that exact moment, “Frida”‘s cell phone rang from inside the bag that supposedly contained only eggs.  It was absolutely hilarious.

Over the weekend I went to a Halloween party five hours away that the American teachers who led our orientation were hosting. I went as Frida Kahlo, inspired by my fabulous lesson!