Beijing police want subways monster-free on Halloween

This Halloween in Beijing, monsters, ghosts and zombies will have to take the bus.

Beijing police have warned that anyone in “weird clothing” or in “scary makeup” will not be allowed to take the subway, the Beijing News reported Friday. Violators could be detained.

Halloween and other Western holidays such as Valentine’s Day and Christmas are not widely celebrated in China. But in recent years, they have become increasingly popular among affluent Chinese in big cities.

Beijing transportation police said that people dressed in strange clothing have gathered in the capital’s subway system on Halloween and the following day in recent years, with their presence attracting crowds of onlookers.

These unapproved gatherings on the Line 2 subway, a loop that circles the city center, have attracted hundreds of people (including a substantial number of expats) dressed as zombies, pandas, tigers and prisoners.

One of the previous organizers, who spoke on the condition he not be named, lamented that the event quickly devolved into a drunken scene of dancing on platforms, blaring boom boxes and crowds of revelers big enough to fill an entire train.

“It really got out of hand,” he said.

This year, the presence of so many spooky costumes could cause “mass panic,” the newspaper noted. With the holiday falling on Friday this year, police expressed special concern that the trains would be particularly crowded during the pre-weekend rush hour.

“If the chaos is serious and causes a stampede or other public safety incident, the police will deal with it severely in accordance with the law,” the newspaper said.

Beijing police advised citizens via their official Weibo microblog to “limit mischief, and do not scare the elderly, pregnant women, children, the timid, and those with cerebrovascular disease in order to avoid serious consequences and unnecessary legal disputes.” This message was paired with an image of four costumed revelers dressed as characters from the film “Star Wars” traveling on the Beijing subway.

Four people dressed as spooky nurses caused a fright on the Shanghai subway on Thursday, causing some children to cry, local media reported. A 71-year-old grandmother suffered a heart attack in the central Chinese city of Wuhan after being frightened by her grandson, who came home at 2 a.m. dressed in a vampire costume.

The Beijing subway restrictions come as the capital is in the midst of enacting sweeping security and anti-pollution measures -- including road closures, traffic controls and the shutdown of factories -- ahead of next week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference, which is attracting numerous heads of state, including President Obama.

Silbert is a special correspondent.

Tommy Yang in the Times’ Beijing bureau contributed to this report.