Fright night(3)

Photo provided to China Daily

"I just said no," she says, wincing at the memory.

"I said: 'Can't you just change the color digitally?' I really think paint would have harmed the cricket."

One Halloween client was a two-year-old girl, who wanted the artist to paint David Beckham on her bare leg.

"What did she say?" her perplexed father asked.

Griffee held up a photo of the soccer superstar and repeatedly asked: "You want this?"

The child insisted, Dad shrugged, and Griffee went to work.

"A lot of the year we spend a lot of time painting kids," the artist says, noting that she's painted more butterflies and tribal tattoos than she cares to remember.

"But on Halloween, it's OK for a grown-up to say: 'Hey, I want to be a skeleton.' Adults are free to turn into children for the weekend. It's a cool thing."

Life story of the day of the dead

Modern Halloween is rooted in Christian and pagan festivals that were celebrated in Europe centuries ago.

The spiritual aspect of remembering the dead, inherent in those events, has long been lost.

But that religious intent is very much alive in the Mexican observance of Dia de los Muertos, often known as Mexico's Halloween.

It has also been compared with China's Tomb-Sweeping Festival, when people visit their ancestors at their graves and honor them with ceremonial offerings of food, drinks and money (usually burned).

Cemeteries become seas of dark-yellow marigold flowers. Grinning skeletons leer from festive posters. And sugar skulls are munched upon by devout observers of all ages.

The embassy of Mexico and the UNAM Center for Mexican Studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University will host a public exhibition to showcase and celebrate these holiday traditions in Beijing on Nov 1 and 2 from 11 am to 5 pm at the Arcaute Arte Contemporaneo, 56 Dongsi Jiutiao, Dongcheng district.