Before Halloween, Pai-Tsang Chang, associate professor of the Department of Horticultural Science, National Chiayi University, taught the first-year undergraduates to make jack-o’-lanterns as part of the horticultural farm internship course. Beginning from Oct. 29th, the students would light the beautiful jack-o’-lanterns, bringing a festive Halloween atmosphere to the hallway of the NCYU Horticultural Science Hall when night falls. Each jack-o’-lantern was uniquely and intricately made by the students. The pumpkin is a horticultural product, and the jack-o’-lantern making during the internship course was expected to introduce the students new to the field to cultivation management, processing and utilization and landscape planning in horticulture.Also known as the All Hallows’ Eve, Halloween is a traditional Western festival and has become a popular holiday in several Asian countries in modern days. Many children in kindergartens or elementary schools will take this chance to dress up as vampires, ghosts or skeletons, and collect candy in the neighborhoods on the eve of Halloween. This is to most of us one of the sweetest childhood memories. Associate Prof. Pai-Tsang Chang from the Department of Horticultural Science has taken up an interest in the Halloween celebrations when pursuing the doctoral degree in the U.S. After returning Taiwan, he gives candy to the students at NCYU on this day as a tradition to give them a different Halloween experience. At the internship course, he prepared 23 heirloom pumpkins for the students, with two teaming up to scrape the pulp out of the pumpkin to make a festive jack-o’-lantern. The winter squash variety was used for the internship in the past years. This year, the heirloom pumpkins were used instead as it was not the harvest season of the winter squash. The yellow skin of the heirloom pumpkins achieves an autumnal aura.
