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The bar's patrons were confounded.
The delivery person went table to table.
"You order food?"
Nobody had.
They'd also never seen a redheaded, American woman porting deliveries in Beijing.
Neither the setting nor the date betrayed her disguise - she was at a Halloween party on Oct 31.
Despite standing out, Kirsten was so cleverly camouflaged via performance, revelers didn't - couldn't - fathom she was playing a part.
People sporting costumes failed to catch on that she was, too. (She even carried a cigarette in one hand - she doesn't smoke - and her phone in the other.)
Kirsten did actually pass out chicken feet, chips and candy from an official delivery box, after the jig was up.
She beat a very realistic Alexander Hamilton and a robed Jesus bearing a full-sized cross for first place in the bar's contest.
A squad of Colonel Sanderses (yes, plural), who - along with a man in a chicken suit - distributed tubs of KFC and won best group.
The hungry were happy.
Several men who approached Kirsten were actual off-duty food-delivery guys. They showed her phone photos of them in uniform.
She also sported the outfit at a university's Halloween party, which - she didn't know - was sponsored by a rival food delivery company.
The competitor was equal parts puzzled and annoyed. It suspected her presence was contrived to undermine its.
It wasn't.
Tell that to the surly, dancing bear mascot.
The confusion surrounding her identity reminds me of my first Halloween in China a decade ago.
Hardly anyone else was dressed up at the rave.
I turned to the security guard to ask where the restroom was. He responded, in English: "Sorry, I don't speak Chinese."
He was an overseas-born Chinese, who'd somehow tracked down a uniform and was about the only other partygoer in costume.
China has gotten more into the Fright Night spirit over the past 10 years. This year, Qingdao's zoo served pumpkins carved by kids to bears and lemurs.
Wuhan's Happy Valley amusement park hosted dancers with jack-o'-lantern heads.
Zombies limped through a mall in Jilin and - clad in medical garb - in a Hong Kong shopping center.
A TV presenter broadcast looking like the Corpse Bride.
Other international holidays have made inroads to China.
Christmas has increasingly become an occasion to deck the halls and decorate trees. And to shop.
Beijing even hosts SantaCon - a mass barhop of people dressed like Kris Kringle. This isn't an ancient Western tradition but, rather, a contemporary global phenomenon.
However, every Easter egg hunt we stage for our kids - once in ancient ruins in western China's desert - gather gaggles of perfectly perplexed onlookers.
The Easter Bunny seemingly remains more enigmatic - at least less emblematic - than St. Nick.
But the jack-o'-lantern's grin seems to glow brighter in China every year.
Halloween continues to deliver new surprises - delectable, be they edible or intangible - often via the people you'd least suspect.
Contact the writer at erik_nilsson@chinadaily.com.cn
