There were
sprees of people committed suicide from jumping down from buildings in Penang
last year. Perhaps the year of snake is not so auspicious after all, hopefully
the year of horse will be better; let’s keep our finger crossed.
Every time
when I read of cases where people jumped off from building, I thought of a case
happened sometime ago to Ah Kow, who was a gangster head in a small village in
Perak.
One of Ah
Kow’s right hand men, Chong died in a gang fight and Ah Kow went to pay Chong a
last respect. Well, perhaps Ah Kow wanted to show that he was a caring leader
to all his members, or perhaps he just had a cup too many; he hugged the coffin
of the deceased and ended up lying on top of it crying and moaning wanting to
take Chong’s place. However, Ah Kow was finally pulled down by his fellow
members.
Three days
after Chong’s funeral, Ah Kow started to become crazy, at time murmured yet at
time slept through the day only suddenly sat up in bed shouting that he wanted
to accompany Chong to the other side. Since the condition of Ah Kow worsened
and his mental condition was unstable; his family member brought Ah Kow to a
temple nearby.
Nevertheless,
Ah Kow created havoc in the temple. He attacked the spirit medium and destroyed
some of the statues in the temple. There was nothing anyone could do at that time
and Ah Kow was finally sent to a mental asylum in Tanjung Rambuta. Ah Kow
stayed in the asylum for a month or so and the psychiatrist couldn’t find any
problems with Ah Kow and they discharged him.
Ah Kow
returned home but the peaceful situation only lasts for a week or so. Ah Kow
used to wake up in the mid of the night soaked in cold sweat while shouting “go
away!” Well, according to Ah Kow’s family; he saw “messengers of death” wanted
to bring him to hell.
These
messengers of death are called “the cow head and horse face” (牛頭馬面) in Taoist
believe and they serve under the King of Hell (閻王); whom is the
equivalent of Yama in Hinduism.
Another
week gone by, and one day Ah Kow told his wife he wanted to visit a friend in
Penang. His wife thought it was a good idea as perhaps a short trip would be
nice get away. So, off Ah Kow went and that was the last time his family saw
him alive.
News of Ah
Kow’s death was informed by police investigators who visited Ah Kow’s family a
couple of days later. According to the investigators, Ah Kow has somehow sneaked
into a condominium and jumped off from the top floor. They has found no evident
of foul play and the case was classified as sudden death.
I only
learnt about the story from Ah Kow’s wife when I was invited to do a Feng Shui
audit on the house. This case is a little bizarre, perhaps it was spiritual and
perhaps it was not. Unfortunately, not all cases involved spirits can be solved
in time; or at all.
