Tag: Fear

• Uncertainties: a collection

  November 12, 2022 12:49 pm Comments Off on Uncertainties: a collection

  We never know what will happen tomorrow. We never even know what will happen in the next few hours of each day. We have so many questions and not enough answers. We make plans just for them to change. Life itself will always be uncertain, but isn’t that what we should love about it? The possibilities are always endless. But sometimes all we yearn for is confirmation that everything will be okay. That we’ll be happy and healthy and that all our dreams will come true. 
   
  Do you have any uncertainties in your life at the moment? What do you wish you could confirm, if life was to be ever so generous?
   
  Whether or not I can study abroad in Japan this year?! Anonymous, 20. 
   
  COVID! Everything is really uncertain in jobs, travel, education and socialising. It’s changing so often that it’s hard to keep up to date. Ruby, 19. 
   
  What I’ll be doing one year from now. Will COVID catch me if I go to Europe in the middle of the year? Clancy, 20. 
   
  I wish the world would tell me if he liked me back. Anonymous, 23. 
   
  I feel like I have many uncertainties in my life that I wish I knew all the answers to. But to be honest, the beauty of life is this idea of not knowing. You have no idea what will be happening in a week, a month or a year, etc. Anonymous, 19. 
   
  Whether I will be successful, not just career but whether I will be happy and content with my life. Anonymous, 20. 
   
  My love life lol. Anonymous, 19. 
   
  Will life, in particular uni, ever actually get back to normal? I feel as though I might never get the uni experience I was looking forward to for years and talked about by friends and family. Dacey, 19. 
   
  As I approach my graduation, I feel very uncertain about what my life will be like in one year’s time. Where will I be? What will I be doing? Who will I be? Will I enjoy it? Rose, 21. 
   
  My fit for Badger on Thursday. Anonymous, 18. 
   
  Where I can confidently handle being COVID positive in the inevitable situation that I contract the virus and what my health will be life after. Anonymous, 47. 
   
  My future. Anonymous, 19. 
   
  Everything, I guess. Mainly if I’ll end up where I want to, even if that plan changes. Jasie, 19. 
   
  I want to know if I’m liked. I want to know whether people find me annoying or not, not so that I can dial down my personality for others, but so I can find a balance which will make everyone feel comfortable around me. Anonymous, 18. 
   
  If my family is happy and healthy. Anonymous, 20. 
   
  I feel uncertain with my place in the world as a person of colour. I’ve so often been belittled by white people. It’s hard to feel safe when quite often, white people speak over POC or try to suppress them. Anonymous, 23. 
   
  If this is going to be the year of my burn out or revival. Anonymous, 20. 
   
  Employment and financial future. Currently super poor, I wish I could be told that everything will be okay. Pete, 20.
   
  What I’m eating for dinner tonight. Matilda, 19. 
   
  I worry about the fact that I’ll probably never be able to buy a house. Anonymous, 20. 
   
  Whether I’ll fail my supplementary exam, lmao. Anonymous, 19. 
   
  Uncertain on the direction of uni life and my career following. Gus, 18. 
   
  Uni experience and whether it will be fun or sad. When will COVID stop defining our lives? When will I pull myself together? How to get rid of pantry moths. Anonymous, 19. 
   
  If I have COVID or not or if I’m going to get it in the near future. James, 19. 
   
  I’m uncertain about what the world is going to look like in 10, 20, 30 years etc. When, from an environmental standpoint, the path that we humans have been on isn’t a reciprocal one, but a more linear destructive one. And that’s the reason I’m doing the degree that I’m doing. Because I’m uncertain about what the natural world is going to look like in 30 years. I want to be a part of those who try their best to preserve it and find more sustainable and regenerative ways for us humans to live. Jack, 19. 
   
  Whether I will ever eat a quesadilla as good as the one I just had. Tiarna, 20.   
   
  I’m really uncertain about where I’ll be in 10 years from now. Sean, 21. 
   
  If my car’s going to break down today or tomorrow. Sarah, 21. 
   
  I’m uncertain about my future, like whether I will succeed in life and be happy and content. I’m uncertain about the future security of the world, both in war ways but also access to resources such as food. Maddie, 20. 
   
  Whether my package is going to arrive on time. Olivia, 20. 
   
  Uncertainties abound and yet the most troubling of all seems to be my own indeterminate feelings! How much could the going-ons of the outer world matter when my own inner world is wildly thrashing shades of sensation that I must say are the emotions and thoughts of a sentient being? Anonymous, 19. 
   
  I am uncertain as to whether I am on the right path and if the decisions I am making now are leading me to the life I want to lead. Ollie, 19.
   
  Originally published in Woroni Vol. 72 Issue 2 ‘To Be Confirmed’
  Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.

  Chetha Nawana

• The World Is My Oyster, And The Pearl Is Back Home

  September 20, 2017 7:11 pm Comments Off on The World Is My Oyster, And The Pearl Is Back Home

  UNWIND IN BETWEEN
  East and West, Liberal Arts and Science, sense and sensibility. A born Libra always weighing her choices, Boya finds it important not to jump to conclusions. A previous foreign correspondent for a Chinese newspaper, Boya is now a second-year Master of Business Information Systems student at the ANU. In this column, she puts observations of cross-cultural phenomenon into perspectives.
  It was a cold spring afternoon during the first week of the break. Not much of a crowd could be seen on campus, but an auditorium in the Australian Centre on China was bustling. There were more than a hundred students (who were mostly Chinese), lined up for a ‘lock in China’ employment information session.
  The speaker, Queena Zhou, is a recruiter specialising in connecting overseas-educated students with Chinese enterprises who favour them. She instilled a sense of urgency to the audience by beginning her talk on how to find a good job in China. ‘Now is the time most of your peers in China begin active job-hunting…if you wait for three months, most of the openings will be filled.’ Zhou’s workshop is part of her recruitment company’s 80-day tour, visiting more than 100 universities in UK, US, Australia, Germany, and Italy. More companies like hers are setting eyes on the pain points of the 660,000 overseas educated Chinese students who will return to China to work this year.
  It is very confronting: there is a tension between their high expectations and a fiercely competitive job market. To get an idea of how heated competition can get, 20 openings in a well-known bank in Beijing attracted over 100,000 resumes in a week’s time. Moreover, not all employers favour returning applicants just because they are educated overseas. Locally groomed students who have more practical expectations for offerings may turn out to be better choices.
  More and more Chinese students are studying abroad, making it have the largest, cumulative international students around the world. One in every four international students in the world is from China. Returning students are also highly educated. The 2016 annual report on the development of Chinese students studying abroad reports that 81.45 per cent of Chinese students who return to China to work have a masters degree and 11.09 per cent have doctorates. These highly educated students are returning to China because of shaky visa policies in their countries of study, and there are better career prospects in China. For most of the masters students majoring in finance, accounting and management; cultural and language differences would lock away a large part of their talent assets abroad.
  Students are losing patience with taking under-appreciated jobs when they could have more promising prospects back home. Statistics have shown that returning students may not get an obvious advantage in their first job, but they usually display greater resilience and potential in long-term performances. China’s fast developing economy is affording increasingly diverse opportunities. Foreign companies are no longer the most appealing recruiters. Currently, the dominant players are Chinese enterprises like Alibaba, Hainan airlines and start-up Internet companies like Didi who want to expand in overseas markets.  
         
  In 2015, a resignation letter from a 35-year-old middle school teacher went viral. It read: ‘the world is so big, I want to have a look.’ It is analogous to Shakespeare’s ‘the world is my oyster’. The enthusiasm for an understanding of the outside world is prevailing.
  At the same time, China is embracing the largest number of returning students in its history. Just a decade ago, only one in seven would return to China after studying abroad. However, today, eight out of 10 will do so. With globalisation and technological advances, the ‘world is my oyster’ is now suffixed with: ‘the world is so big, go for a look and come home soon’.      
  The change in mentality is clear. The thinking that, ‘only those who did not do well overseas would return to China’ has changed to ‘only those who are not ambitious in their careers will stay abroad.’
  It is yet to be seen how this current generation of overseas-educated students will shape and change China’s modernisation. But what we do know is that for an increasing number of students, they are clear that the world is their oyster, yet, the places to find the pearl is now back home.

  Boya Li

• Her Fear

  October 18, 2016 1:09 pm Comments Off on Her Fear

  She knows, in the bottom of her heart, that if she is not busy enough, if she is not occupied with her assignments, slides, theses and so on, she would be so sad she would cry. She cannot help feeling scared.
  She is young and naïve, she hadn’t ventured into society before, and she had never been abandoned. She had imagined it though, read novels about it, and speculated how she would react. But imagination is never enough. In the past, she hid inside the shell of university, making do with books and theory. Her parents protected her too much. Growing up she lived inside a castle, closed off from the harsh world by narrow hallways.
  But now she has been abandoned. She feels fear now, endless fear. Uncertainty. She feels insecure, skeptical, and wonders when the negativity will go away. She is afraid of being abandoned again, and yet she relishes in the chance to be alone. She cannot bear watching on as the guy who had been hers is now with some other girl. Her fear is extreme uncertainty.
  The fear, her strong and gigantic enemy, is impacting her ability to study. Yet she knows if she stops she will be more miserable. She does not know how to deal with the fear, sorrow and depression that twist her heart. So she pretends they are not there, working on her endless mound of homework instead. She has few friends to talk with. She has come here from a foreign country and is introverted. To speak up would mean interrupting people who seem so busy with their assignments. She has tried watching comedies, but she ended up feeling guilty for not studying. She tried talking with her mum, but she has her own concerns to tackle. So she stays in the library, alone, yet surrounded by so many others.
  Her only companion is the song she plays on repeat, “I am too scared to stop now; I am too scared to let go.”
  The greatest fear is her fear of being herself. She doesn’t like herself, and refuses to let her true colours shine through. As a matter of fact, amusingly, she doesn’t even understand what her true colours are.
  Her fear is unattractive, she knows this.
  The dry lecture slides, complex formulas, confusing numbers and long theses are now her saviours –distractions from her unnecessary fear.
  She still remembers what a psychologist once said to her, “When you are afraid that something will happen, one way to eliminate the fear is to create an opportunity to allow the event that you are scared of take place on purpose.”
  Is this true? She fancies herself as having lived out this wisdom every day, but in reality, she doesn’t have the courage to face her fears. She is fearful of being herself, in case others abandon the real her. She didn’t realise that she would abandon herself first.
  She now is writing her feelings here. She is happy to have found the strength to admit her fear in some small way. She feels brave for admitting the existence of her fear and sorrow. She has made the right decision.

  Wanting Chen

• Halloween, Jack-O’-Lanterns and Zombies, Oh My!

  October 17, 2016 8:26 pm Comments Off on Halloween, Jack-O’-Lanterns and Zombies, Oh My!

  Slip of the Lip
  Hailing from the glorious city of Queanbeyan, I spent my first year of uni dabbling in Physics, Maths, English and Music. By some drastic turn of events, I am now majoring in German and Linguistics. A Slip of the Lip is a linguistics student’s attempt to provide interesting and (reasonably) well-researched language titbits.

  With Halloween (and exams) coming up, there are some frightening times ahead, but how much do you know about the history behind these spooky words? I now present you with the origins of ‘Halloween’, ‘jack-o’-lantern’ and ‘zombie’…
  Halloween
  Though there are certainly many aspects of Halloween that stem from Celtic Pagan traditions, the name ‘Halloween’ itself is of Christian origin. The 1st of November is the Catholic festival ‘All Saints’ Day’ – alternatively known as ‘All Hallows’. A ‘hallow’ is just another word for a saint, or if you’re a Harry Potter buff, it can also mean any symbolic, powerful object of legend. The 31st of October is thus, All Hallows Eve, and has been referred to as such since the mid-16th century. If you speak Scots (a language in – you guessed it – Scotland), the word for ‘eve’ is ‘even’, which contracts to ‘e’en’. With a little bit of laziness and a whole lot of time, we’ve ended up with: All Hallows Eve – (All) Hallow(s) E’en – Halloween.
  Jack-O-Lanterns
  As early as the mid-17th century, Jack-O’-Lantern, or “Jack of the Lantern”, was a term used to describe a night watchman – ‘Jack’ being a generic name for any unfamiliar man. The name was also given to the lights than spring up over marshlands (likely as a result of chemicals oxidising), because they looked like spooky watchmen traversing the night. According to Irish legend – though the term actually comes from the tale of ‘Stingy Jack’ – one day, Stingy Jack met the Devil, and convinced him to go for a drink before he was taken to Hell. The Devil obligingly agreed, but Jack, being stingy and all, didn’t feel like paying for the drinks. The Devil, being other-worldly and having no cash, suggested that he turn himself into a coin in order to pay. Stingy Jack thought this was a brilliant idea, and once the Devil had turned himself into a coin, Jack put him in his pocket next to a silver cross so the Devil’s powers were thwarted and he was stuck in coin-form.
  Jack eventually released the Devil on the condition that he be allowed to live a while longer, and the Devil wouldn’t take his soul when he eventually did die. Fast forwarding a bit through the story, Jack died and went up to Heaven. God was all like “uh-uh, you’re a sinner through and through, down to Hell with you,” but because Jack had made the Devil promise not to take his soul, the Devil wouldn’t take him into Hell either. Jack was doomed to find his own afterlife – he begged the Devil for at least a light to find his way, and the Devil threw him an ember. Jack took it, stuck it in a turnip, and began his eternal journey. When the practice of putting lights in vegetables at celebrations eventually made its way over to America, it was discovered that the native pumpkins were perfectly suited to the tradition. Children also worked out that carving scary faces in them made the whole thing just that little bit more Halloween-y. Thus, the current jack-o’-lantern.
  Zombies
  The word ‘zombie’ likely derives from the Kongo word nzambi, meaning “god”. The word, and significant elements of Haitian Vodou practice, made their way over with the slave trade from Africa to Haiti in the mid-17th to 18th century. The first reference in English of ‘zombie’ in the sense that we now use it was in W.B. Seabrook’s 1929 sensationalist book, The Magic Island, as ‘zombi’. The concept of the walking undead has its roots in Haitian beliefs, though (from my limited knowledge of the topic as someone who has never lived in Haiti nor met a Haitian) appears to be parallel to, rather than actual part of, the Vodou religion. A bokor, a sort of sorcerer who deals with darker magic, is believed to have the ability to turn a person into a zombie – in most cases using an existing corpse, but in some cases killing a person expressly for the purpose of zombification. These zombies themselves are not particularly harmful, and are mostly reported to be used as slave labour on plantations. The prospect of being turned into a zombie is actually far more terrifying than the prospect of encountering one. Thus, the process of zombification is actually outlawed as murder according to Haitian Penal Code (Article 246), as long as the ‘lethargy’ associated with the zombification process leads to the burial of the technically still-living victim.
  So there you have it. There are (in my opinion) the origins of the most interesting word in the spooky Halloween phenomena. Happy Halloween everyone!

  Caroline Hendy

• Campus Horrors: Architectural Critiques of Campus Buildings

  8:18 pm Comments Off on Campus Horrors: Architectural Critiques of Campus Buildings

  “Why yes, ANU does have pretty grounds. Lots of trees.”…goes every conversation about ANU. The early years of ANU wasn’t a good time for architecture: our campus is littered with brute and nasty architectural horrors. Perhaps it’s time to get Sirius with them… Kaaaaabooooom!
  The School of Music
  An Orwellian exercise in brutalism, this heavy concrete lump is a travesty of the human imagination. Blunt, harsh and foreboding – it speaks more of a cold-war nuclear installation, than a temple of music. Grimly grey, awkwardly girt by a sea of carparks and other thoughtless arrangements of space, it howls an arrogance and bloodymindedness. With no real sense of an entrance (with the needs of the person an afterthought) patrons must scurry round the edges, down corridors, up stairs, round corners and through door after door. The belly of the beast is large, and cathedral like – adding the only sense of openness to the building. Whilst the newish refurbishment has softened the interior with honey-coloured woods and scarlet fabrics: you can’t polish execrable architecture. The actual seating, particularly in the upper levels, much like the mind of the architect – is detached from the reality of humans needs. If you’re caught sitting upstairs, far from a royal box – you weirdly stare at your counterpart across the room, thus rendering the need for peripheral vision to see the stage. Admittedly, the upper level which sports a well stocked café has a nice expansive view of Black Mountain – but the story of the Englishman who ate his dinner in the Eifel Tower, because it was the only place where he could go in Paris where he could not see the Eiffel Tower, comes to mind.
  The Chancellery
  The Chancellery is an imposing composition, with the faintest echoes of collegial gothic. The perpendicular ribbing which intersperse the narrow windows down the flanks of the building, and which end in blunted finials, add to the sense that it is referencing a medieval chapel: though without the sense of awe, beauty or purpose of Kings College Chapel in Cambridge or Keble College in Oxford. The large glass east and west windows, far from being great illuminating stained-glass windows, shed light only onto stairwells. This alone betrays the limitations of translating beauty with the sparse vocabulary of a modernist high rise. Besides some blank wood paneling, the interior reveals no great surprises, adopting the white anonymity which is the default of the blank modern office. Ignoring the charmless, dark and heavy blocks which break off the main chancellery tower complex, the broad, cloister like walk is the most elegant and inviting aspect of the building. With the gentle sounds of the fountain bubbling, and shedding dancing light over the serene sculpture of a reading woman – it is about the only aspect of the building that evokes the ageless beauty and academical contemplation which it awkwardly fails to capture in any other sense.
  Union Building
  A cantankerous, ungainly creature, the union building is merely a placeholder until the will and the means exist to replace it. Giving off the sense that it was the result of a failing architects first project, it speaks of a suburban arcade that ultimately went into early liquidation because people would rather drive to the next town to buy their goods and chattels, than venture forth into its dimly lit hodge-podgery. It’s like how you’d imagine the Burrow – the abode of the Weasley family – except rendered in 70s drab brick and concrete. It has the aesthetic of a carpet warehouse in Fyshwick crossed with the amenity of an RSL club, whose specialty just happens to be providing cut-price student eats instead of weekly pensioner bingo. Ultimately, the only warmth this building inspires is conjured from a fresh Campus Bakery Pie. In the long run, we’re likely to remember the pie far longer in our nostalgic reflection on the halcyon days of university life.
  Coombs
  What this building lacks in logic, it makes up in legend: known to many as ‘The Catacoombs’. Labyrinthine and confusing, only the foolhardy and the foolish venture into this lair of the minotaur. Enter if ye dare. Besides the fact that each mezzanine floor doesn’t really line up with any other, and it’s difficult to tell whether the elderly bearded chaps are professors or lost students from the ‘60s, it has a certain ‘stockholm syndrome’ charm. Whether this is genuine charm, or mere bafflement, is hard to tell. The hexagonal design is seemingly an architect’s joke reference to its namesake HC ‘Nugget Coombs’, or the result of a lost bet in the pub.
  Other horrors on campus (sorry Fenner, you don’t count):  
  Burgmann College: the USSR called and wants its military base back.
  John XIII College: good strategic use of trees and foliage to block its hideosity.
  Ursula Hall: creative adaptive use of multi-story carpark.
  College under construction: it’s a pity the scaffolding will come down.
  New Science Buildings: designed entirely on SIMS, and with the same childlike glee.
  BNG: those giant concrete emergency stairs nicely accentuate the historic charm of the anonymous red brick.
  Unilodge: the future ain’t pretty.
  AD. Hope: forsake all hope.
  Crawford School: good thing it’s so far away, choice use of stone.
  Bruce Hall: are they selling popcorn to spectators on demolition day?

  Chris Wren

• The Politics of Fear

  8:18 pm Comments Off on The Politics of Fear

  When we think of leaders who rule with fear we usually think of historical overlords in authoritarian or totalitarian regimes – such as Stalin, Hitler or Mao. What gets ignored is the reality that fear seems to be a subtle, but even more prevalent weapon, in current democratic political discourse. It is now an institutionalized practice for political leaders to use fear instead of inspiration in order to maintain power.
  Leaders who rule by inspiring are meant to make people optimistic about the future, and push for a change in the status quo or the system. Many modern leaders, however, who attempt to wield inspiration are seen as weak, naïve and idealistic – traits that are futile when it comes to creating practical outcomes. We have become too scared to put our trust in inspirational leaders because they seem to have either perpetually disappointed us, or actually created new fears.
  Barack Obama went into the U.S. election with the weight of the people on his shoulders, hoping to build a new, progressive America after the presidency of George Bush. A hostile congress, however, meant that it was extremely difficult for him to implement some of his most important reforms surrounding improved health care and gun regulation.
  Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is another modern leader who has become renowned for leading by inspiration throughout Europe. She is a leader taking ambitious measures on issues such as refugees and climate change. However, despite her ability to actually implement reforms – such as having the highest refugee intake in Europe and having a higher quota for renewable energy – the fear that this has created within the German public about the instability and threat this could have to their own wellbeing, has caused her popularity has plummeted.
  The fear that is fostered by leaders in modern, industrialized democratic systems is not a ‘fear for our lives’ like seen in traditional authoritarian regimes, but instead, is a fear of our Western “lifestyles” being compromised. This anxiety is vulnerable to exploitation by politicians who exaggerate danger, fuel the fear, and offer themselves as a solution. This is no longer simply a policy platform of the conservative side of politics, but has merged into popular discourse. Parties on the progressive side of politics perpetuate fear of how the conservative politicians could threaten welfare, whilst the conservatives threaten that the progressive side could endanger social norms and conventions.
  This can be seen in the current U.S. presidential debate. Donald Trump and Clinton have engaged in pure fear mongering, and through the process of “mud throwing”, are simply trying to convince the American public that the opposition poses a greater threat than they do. Trump promotes the fear that the lives of the underrepresented working class will not change, while Clinton promotes the fear that Trump will create catastrophe if he were elected.
  Australian politics demonstrates how issues that are deemed ‘controversial’ and stir up significant common fear in the public are always tackled conservatively, because other approaches pose too much of a risk to the popularity of the politicians. On the issue of asylum seekers, for example, both Labor and Liberal have reached the same consensus in their alternative terms in Government – that people who immigrate to Australia by boat should not be settled in Australia. Despite all the humanitarian or ethical issues this has raised, deciding policy courses through the lens of fear rather than with a moral compass, is seen to be a more reliable option to ensure that power is maintained.
  It is the unfortunate truth that it is currently easier and more common for a leader to rule with fear, if their priority is to hold onto authority, and even popularity. No matter what the political system, fear always wins.

  James Atkinson

• Should Australians Celebrate Halloween?

  8:11 pm Comments Off on Should Australians Celebrate Halloween?

  When I first came to Australia last spring, I was quite disappointed to learn that nobody here celebrates Halloween. What kid wouldn’t want to choose a classic costume (I was a pumpkin for four years), decorate their house with cobwebs and pumpkins, and go from door-to-door yelling at old people to give them candy?
  Halloween seems like such a fun, harmless holiday, but admittedly, there are some ugly truths beneath the surface. For me, the holiday gained new meanings as years passed.
  As a kid it was all about the candy. At the end of trick or treating, my favourite tradition was when my brother and I would dump all of our candy onto the floor and trade with each other till we had all our favourites (whilst inevitably eating half of it in the process).
  By the time Middle School rolled around it was more about passing out candy to the younger kids, playing pranks and scaring the wits out of each other – though I personally didn’t engage in any tricks, only treats. One of my favourite Halloween memories is the haunted corn maze. My friends and I once stood in line for two hours to enter, only to experience just two minutes of horror because one of my friends fainted and the other peed herself at the sight of clowns with chainsaws.
  By high school, now that Halloween parties were in the mix, dressing up was suddenly cool again – though the costumes had suddenly become a bit more provocative.
  By university, Halloween had become a three-week-long event. Fraternities and friends would throw parties with Halloween themes the week before, the week of, and the week after the hallowed October 31st date. Boys and girls would scuttle home the mornings after still decked out in their costumes. One year I was Tinkerbell and I proudly rocked my fairy wings the 2km back to my dorm.
  Inarguably, some of my favourite memories come from preparing for and celebrating Halloween, however, I’m far from being an advocate for the holiday to expand its reaches to Australia. In addition to those who have religious qualms about Halloween, there are serious health and social concerns.
  According to the Australian Institute for Health and Welfare, 63% of adults and 25% of children in Australia are overweight or obese, but some expect the latter number to rise to 65% by 2020. Promoting a holiday that glorifies the mass consumption of sugar, chocolate and other unhealthy snacks shouldn’t be on the agenda. In 2008 alone, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that $58 billion was spent on health care for obese people.
  Furthermore, Halloween night is rife with dangerous alcohol consumption and drunk driving accidents. The United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated that on Halloween night in 2011, 38% of fatalities were because of drunk driving, and The Columbus Dispatch reported that pedestrians were 35% more likely to be hit by a car.
  Picking out a costume is one of the best (and most stressful) parts of Halloween, but it can also present serious social issues. Cultural appropriation is damaging, and is a common occurrence on Halloween when you see political correctness slip away as people create loopholes for unjustified behaviour. I’ve seen people dress as “Mexicans”, “geisha girls”, “gangsters”, and “Native Americans”, and I put all of these in parenthesis because they incorrectly stereotype people and communities.
  On Halloween what you wear as a costume, someone else sees as an identity. You may see it as a joke, but they may see it as humiliating, degrading, a loss of control of their identity, or even as an inaccurate representation of their culture.
  During the semester I spent living in a college on campus here in Australia, I was saddened to see a list go around for Girls’ Night that had some people dressing as “Mexicans”. Those who showed up wore sombreros, fake moustaches and ponchos. Needless to say this is not an accurate representation of Mexican culture, and it is a damaging stereotype that people are constantly confronted with.
  While some may feel like they can wear someone’s culture for an evening, others feel circumscribed to wear a costume that others have already given them, or may simply have no role models to emulate. One of my friends has told me that when she would choose costumes, she felt that because she was Chinese her only options were Mulan or Cho Chang. My friend felt marginalised and excluded because she saw so few people in the media that she could model her costume on.
  Social lines that dictate what a person can or cannot dress as can be harmful to children trying to build an identity for themselves. Social constructs that make girls dress like princesses and boys dress like superheroes can be very harmful in the long run.
  So, no, I don’t think Australia should celebrate Halloween. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of costumes that aren’t offensive, and it’s more than possible to have a fun night while avoiding alcohol and chocolate, but many people won’t make the right choices.
  Photo credit: Huffington Post

  Laura Wright