Chen recounts that on Thursday at noon, the police showed up at his bar to remind him that it was forbidden to host Halloween parties with people in costumes. It was the third time since last Friday that several officers entered his establishment, located in the always lively French concession of Shanghai, to give him the same warning.
"It's all very absurd. They tell me that there is no problem in hosting Halloween parties as long as customers do not wear costumes or come in makeup," Chen explains, who even removed the decorations he had put up last week (plastic pumpkins, candles, and cobwebs) because he says he no longer knows what is legal and what is not.
Two streets away from Chen's bar, there is a famous intersection with three popular bars that usually fill up at night, especially with foreign residents, where the police of China's financial capital have also visited several times to warn owners against hosting costume parties this year.
"Authorities have become paranoid because they believe that Halloween costumes could be a pretext for staging a disguised public protest against government control and repression," says one business owner.
Last Wednesday, some bars in downtown Shanghai received a strange notification from local authorities: starting at 9:00 p.m. until Sunday, no new customers are allowed, whether in costume or not.
Over the past weekend, the police dispersed a crowd celebrating Halloween on a busy avenue in downtown Shanghai and detained several people. Some were simply asked for identification. Others, like a guy dressed as Batman, ended up in the police station.
"They've gone crazy, they took my friend on Sunday, and he was held for four hours in a police station. His crime was walking down the street with zombie makeup," a witness tells this newspaper.
Authorities have set up barriers around Zhongshan Park, where several Halloween gatherings were planned this year, and there is increased police presence in the French concession, with vans scattered on the streets where more bars are concentrated.
Background: last year's party
To find an explanation for all this unexpected crackdown on Halloween in the Chinese city where it was most celebrated, we have to go back exactly one year. Thousands of people dressed up and took to the streets of Shanghai in what was the first major street party after the long Covid closures. Some costumes went viral on Chinese social media, with people wearing PPE suits, the protective gear that was ubiquitous in China during the pandemic.
Others, with two boxes, pretended to be one of the famous PCR testing booths that were set up everywhere. There were also those who went out dressed as a blank sheet, the symbol of the massive protests that took place at the end of 2022 against lockdowns and censorship that led to Xi Jinping's government suddenly lifting all restrictions. A very popular video circulated on social media of a young man dressed as a giant camera, a nod to the mega surveillance system in the Asian giant.
There was a fantastic atmosphere last year in the country's most open city. But in the corridors of power, they must not have been pleased with what they interpreted as costumes mocking government policies.
Several Halloween parties scheduled for this Thursday were canceled. The same goes for Friday and Saturday. In the capital, Beijing, some famous nightclubs have also received notifications that they cannot host costume parties. "Anyone attempting to enter with strange costumes or excessive makeup will be immediately expelled," reads a message posted by one of these venues.
Thursday night (local time), despite the heavy rains soaking Shanghai - the heaviest in 40 years, as authorities predict, a sufficiently deterrent element that does not invite large crowds in the streets - there was still a significant police presence in the most central neighborhoods, ensuring that Batman did not show up to celebrate Halloween.