One Hundred Households Rice (百家米)

Have I told you that there is one type of ghost that I will try all my wits to avoid?

 

Well, this type of ghost is known as 'hung ghost' (吊死鬼).

 

There are many ways to deal with this type of ghost, some people use blood of black hound (黑狗血) and talismans. Having said so... It is forbidden to torture animals in our civil world; with some exceptions of course. The second most effect of all I think is the ‘one hundred household rice’ (百家米).

 

‘100 household rice’ as the name implies, is raw rice grains collected from 100 different households. It is not difficult to collect rice grains from 100 households in Asia but I can imagine it is a little challenging to do it elsewhere; especially in the West.

 

Mr. Lim is a businessman while Mrs. Lim is a housewife. Both of them are from Sabah and they are staying at the back of sawmill managed by the Lim family. Due to the nature of Mr. Lim’s business, he travelled locally and also to Southeast Asia a lot to source for logs. That leaves Mrs. Lim to supervise the management of this sawmill.

 

Everything was fine until one day, the wife of Lim’s foreign worker known as Aisha hung herself in the sawmill hostel due to some domestic issues… The Lim family didn’t want to make a big case out of it so they gave the worker some money to settle the body.

 

Just as when Mr. Lim thought the case is settled, he went outstation for making a business deal leaving Mrs. Lim overseeing the management of the sawmill. One day later, Mrs. Lim suddenly fell sick…

 

As recalled by Mr. and Mrs. Lim when I met her after her recovery at their place for a tea:

 

“On the night Mr. Lim left for business, suddenly I heard a voice calling my name. As a habit, I sort of answered the call as I thought it was my maid Siti who had called me as usual.

 

I had a nightmare further into the night. It was Aisha who came to me with a hung rope still attached on her neck… she said she wanted to take my life so that she can be released from this place…

 

Subsequently I felt extremely cold and hot and was unable to wake up. It was Siti who came to my room after she was suspicious something wasn’t very right.

 

My family doctor was called and he gave me some antibiotics and asked me to rest and so I did. It was really out of my expectation that the more I rest, the drowsier I became and subsequently lost my consciousness.

 

Later, I heard from Siti’s mouth, my hubby was summoned immediately from his business visits…”

 

Mr. Lim continued to finish the story…

 

“When I arrived, I saw my wife lying almost breathless in the bed so I had to send her to the general hospital. My pa visited us in the hospital and according to him; my wife was the victim of Aisha’s ghost.

 

Since Aisha died with a sense of revenge (怨气), we cannot fight her head on. The only method is to overcome Aisha's energy with the chi of 100 households and in order to collect this chi, we only need to collect some rice grains from 100 different household...

 

That wasn't a problem for me as I have more than 100 workers, so as soon as I returned to my sawmill plant; I asked every worker to bring some rice to me. True enough, in a few hours’ time the rice already presented on my table.

 

The good docs couldn’t find any problems with my wife so I fetched her home and followed my old man’s instruction to put the rice under my wife’s bed for 49 consecutive days.

 

I am not a superstitious person but it was very strange that on the day I put the rice under my Mrs’ bed, she regained her consciousness a few hours later… After the 49 days period, those white rice grains turned to black! Do you believe it or not?”

 

Besides such rice is used for exorcism, it is also said that this rice from 100 households can also make a weak child strong by merely consuming it alone…