It was a cold night in late October, 1991. The air had that crisp quality to it, the kind I would come to later associate with Canadian autumns and the texture of Macintosh apples. My parents, their optimism and hopes for the future carefully packed into 4 large suitcases and their two kids in tow, landed in Quebec City after a long flight across the ocean. My little sister and I were oblivious to the realities that my parents were faced with back then – the courage it must have taken to start again in a new country, among new customs and traditions, away from family and friends they had known their whole lives. In pursuit of knowledge and a rewarding future, they had made their way to Canada.

It was past midnight when we arrived and my father gathered us and our luggage into a cab and off to a nearby hotel he had booked for our first night in Canada. We arrived at the hotel and were quickly checked into our room. I remember going to bed and in my 6 year old mind, all I was wondering about was a) what we were eating for breakfast and b) what my new school would be like.

We woke up early the following morning, got dressed and headed downstairs to have breakfast at the hotel before going out to explore the area. My dad was eager to visit Sainte-Foy, the neighbourhood some Iranian students living in Quebec City had recommended to my parents as a good place to raise a family.

Massey, Zahra & Mom enjoying an authentic Canadian Fall

We shuffled down the hallway of the hotel and into the elevator, heading down to the restaurant for breakfast. On our way down, the elevator stopped to let in more passengers. The doors opened and a man stepped in. We all stared at him. His clothing was torn, the fabric hanging loosely in parts, held together with rugged stitches. His face was covered with bruises, cuts and what appeared to be an openly bleeding wound on his head. He held a makeshift, rusted machete in one hand while his other hand was bandaged, blood seeping through the dirty fabric. We were all too stunned to actually do anything but stare. I edged closer to my dad, wrapping my arms around his leg as he put a hand on my shoulder. We all stood there in stunned silence as the elevator descended to the ground floor. When the doors opened, we all stepped off and the man made his way ahead of us down the hall. My parents exchanged a look with raised eyebrows that said I don’t know what that was but he didn’t seem threatening so let’s just go with it? My dad took my hand and my mom held my sister a bit closer as we continued towards the hotel’s restaurant.

We arrived and were greeted by a woman whose face was covered with large boils, wearing dark clothing and her matted, straw like hair tied back with frayed rope. She smiled at us over a large, crooked nose, revealing two missing teeth. My parents, too polite to say or do anything, did not show any reaction (which was pretty impressive) and instead returned the woman’s smile, wearing expressions that could only be described as giant question marks. We followed her quietly to a table. Once seated, I looked around. It was early in the morning, almost 7am, and the restaurant was empty. The woman with the boils returned to take our order and promptly walked to the back of the restaurant, handing it to a man working alone in the kitchen. I stared. The man had red eyes and when he smiled over at us, his teeth were yellow and pointy. A single red tear drop had fallen from his left eye, leaving behind a bloody trail that had now dried and was crusted against his cheek. I looked at my parents and they looked at each other. “Baba, what is this place?” I asked, a kid’s equivalent to Dad, wtf?

We finished our breakfast hastily (I had the best croissant I had ever tasted – and as we had just spent a year living in France, that was saying a lot). We didn’t speak much. My mom broke the silence by noting that she had seen a McDonald’s the night before as we had made our way to the hotel from the airport. She suggested that we should go there, grab some tea and chocolate milk after breakfast. I think in retrospect, what she was really doing is getting us out of the hotel, hoping whatever was happening inside wasn’t happening out there.

We bundled up with our layers and walked over to the McDonald’s that was across the street from our hotel. The yellow arches were familiar and in a way, made us feel like we weren’t so far into a place we didn’t know. I burst ahead into the McDonald’s and ran up to where a young man was standing behind the counter. I stopped short. He too seemed to be inflicted with some kind of disease, his skin was peeling and his eyes were dark, almost black. He smiled at me. “What can I get you?” he asked pleasantly. I looked around, speechless. Almost everyone working there, and some of the customers as well, had something wrong with them. A limp, a hook where an arm used to be, open wounds, strange clothing and eye patches. One man was wearing a ski mask, casually enjoying his breakfast at a nearby table. Another looked as if she was completely bandaged from head to toe in what could only be toilet paper.

I looked back to where my parents stood, looking as perplexed and petrified as I was. We ordered and quickly made our way back to the hotel. Once back in the lobby, my mom turned to my dad and gave him a look that was clearly the discrete, adult version of honey, wtf? Not wanting to alarm us any further, she pointed around us and said “Hey girls, I guess we’ll have to pick up some pumpkins for our new apartment too huh?” motioning at the decor in the room.

I looked around and noticed that the lobby was decorated with pumpkins – some real and some plastic, sitting on stools and tables covered with fall leaves. Some of them were illuminated from the inside by flickering tea candles, crooked faces and images carved onto their surfaces. Others were crawling with plastic spiders. I remember all of us nodding at my mom’s suggestion. We wanted to fit in, be a part of whatever this strange pumpkin tradition was that Canadians obviously took very seriously. To this day, it’s the smell of charred pumpkin flesh and melted candle wax that I still associate with my first day in Canada. The Canada that is now home. It was October 31st, 1991 and my family and I had just lived through what can only go down in history as the biggest case of culture shock ever experienced. Our first Halloween, coinciding with our first day in Canada, had turned out to be an experience we would always remember.

Massey & Baba, circa Fall 1990, Tehran, Iran (a year before our first year in Canada) 

Fast forward a year later and we are living in what was essentially a castle converted to a rental building aptly named Pavillon Montcalm. Built in the early 1920’s, it was formerly a college for a Christian brotherhood organization (the building has since been majorly renovated). It was huge, and old and maze-like.

Pavillion Montcalm in all its glory

It’s Halloween 1992 and my sister and I are (ironically) dressed up as pumpkins. My mom had made our costumes herself. I use the word costume loosely because as much as she had tried to recreate the ones we had seen in her Sears catalogue and on TV, it was still the first time she had made anything like this. Also, the arts and crafts budget my parents had set aside as students raising two small children was modest at best. We had orange capes that my mom had sewn out of fabric she had picked up from Bouclair (on sale) which tied around our necks. On our faces, we wore paper plates that my sister and I had drawn jack-o-lanterns on, in bright orange marker. My mom had helped us cut triangles out for our eyes and had looped an elastic through the sides so we could wear the plates on our faces. We looked absolutely ridiculous, like some kind of orange cape wearing plate-faced superhero, but I had never felt as excited as I did that moment.

We had 350 apartment units to hit up in the entire pavilion and we were serious about getting to all of them. We set out and went door to door in what was more or less a fully student occupied building. My sister and I seemed to be the only kids in the whole place. Most residents, not expecting trick-o-treaters, were unprepared for the two little immigrant kids that had shown up on their doorstep, determined to reap the rewards of their first Halloween. Not having anything else to give away, quite a few gave us entire chocolate bars, some gave us cash (two dollar bills!) and others handed out packs of gum they had lying around at home. One girl who actually happened to be prepared, opened the door shrieking with excitement. “You’re the only trick-o-treaters I’ve had all night!” she said and emptied two full bowls of candy into our bags. It was quite literarily the best day of our lives.

Over the years, Halloween has remained my favourite holiday – by far. The accumulation of dozens of home-made costumes, carved pumpkins and successful trick-o-treating expeditions with my friends all played a part in the creation of my Canadian-Iranian identity. We mixed in some of our own traditions too, like how my mom would always roast the pumpkin seeds afterward we’d carved the crap out of our pumpkins – with salt and lemon juice and we’d eat them as a snack, mixed together with saffron pistachios and dried mulberries (two very Iranian things). In a way, Halloween took on the visual representation of our integration into Canadian society. We participated and grew up feeling like we belonged because it was something we did with our neighbours and our community and family. And also because – candy. Even when I was too old to go trick or treating, I would take my little brother as an excuse to dress up and go out and check out everyone’s costumes. As I got older, I also started to appreciate how Halloween was the one holiday which seemed to break down all societal boundaries – it’s so easy to spark up conversation with strangers during Halloween. A simple “nice costume!” or “what are you supposed to be?” leads the way for a conversation with someone you have just met or seen on the street.

Halloween is and will always be a special day for my family – falling leaves and costumes worn over snow suits because it snowed too early and third culture kids carving their first pumpkin – there’s nothing more Canadian than that.