Sighting In ICU (急诊室所见)

Buddhist believe that if a person is not a believer of Buddhism and that he/she does not engage in the correct dharma, then when this person dies; he/she shall not be able to be fetched by Buddha and bodhisattvas to the pure land. Instead, the person’s ancestors will come to fetch this person’s soul instead. Of course, life after death matters remain a research interest in the West as well. Again, there are many theories and real encounters by those who have managed to return to tell their side of the story. Below is just one from Aunt Helen:

About two years ago, my distant relative Aunt Helen was admitted to a private hospital in Ipoh due to heart attack. After spending some time in the operating theatre, her condition stabilized and she was put in the intensive care unit (ICU) for a week for round-the-clock observations. And luckily Aunt Helen was able to live to tell her experience while she was in the ICU.

After being escorted out from the operating theatre, Aunt Helen was placed in a ICU together with another 4 patients around her. Naturally, all of them were almost in very critical conditions. Aunt Helen’s sickbed was near the ICU entrance while another old lady was beside her and other two sickbeds were facing these two. Right after Aunt Helen’s condition has stabilized, I was allowed by the doctor in-charge to visit her.

When Aunt Helen saw me, she grabbed hold of my wrists and begged me to bring her home because she said that she started to see many ‘white people’ at night stood by her sickbed staring at her. As described by Aunt Helen, she couldn’t recognize who those people were because all of their face were blurred. Except that she could tell if the figure was a child, a man or a woman. All of them would assemble quietly starting midnight at the end of her sickbed. At first, a few white figures just stood by at the further end and gradually the number increased by many folds until Aunt was surrounded by those white folks. All of them just stood by quietly looking at Aunt Helen which made her very uncomfortable.

Then the night before I visited Aunt Helen, she saw those ‘white people’ started to gather around the sickbed beside her where the old lady was lying in. Strangely, there were no white figure by Aunt Helen’s sickbed. Then one of those white figures protruded its hands to grab the old lady’s hands. After some tries, a white mist raised from the old lady’s body and went into the crowd of mysterious white folks. A moment later, all of the white folks started to disperse and all of them were gone in a jiffy.

At this time, a nurse on duty came in to check on the old lady’s condition and she alerted the doc on duty as well. After a round of first aids, Aunt Helen saw the nurse pulled up the blanket to cover the old lady’s face. A moment later, some male nurses came and lifted the old lady into a stretcher and carried her away. When Aunt Helen asked the nurse on duty the next morning, the nurse just shook her head.

Perhaps Aunt Helen was afraid that the group of white figures would come to her again that night, she adamantly wanted to leave the ICU before the end of the day. Of course no one would allow her to do so in her dire health condition. So as to sooth Aunt Helen, I went to a Taoist temple downtown to beg for a ‘fu’ (talisman) and bring it to Aunt Helen and asked her to hide under her pillow.

Luckily, the group of white folks never returned to haunt Aunt Helen and she was discharged from ICU a week later. After spending another 3 weeks in normal sick wad, Aunt Helen was subsequently discharged from the hospital.

Although I am aware that a hospital can be quite a haunted place, but what were those white figures visiting the dying at night? They didn’t sound like those wandering spirits of the deceased as they seemed to have come with a motive: to get the soul of the dead. Maybe there are the ancestors of the dying; or the messengers from hell?

A Good Luck Guide (幸运指南)

A few years ago, I had afternoon tea with a few businessmen from Hong Kong. And all of those present were successful business folks except me. So, I asked about their advices concerning how to become lucky other than hardworking.

Uncle Chan said: “I make sure that there is one clothing I wear is not new or even torn. I would even put a hole in my underwear and wear it throughout the year and, I asked my children and wife to do the same. We are blessed up till these days.”

Uncle Lee said: “I would try to break an old item in my house every year and created a small loss. By doing so, I had in fact avoided many losses or in worse cases; I had cut my losses to the minimum.”

Aunty Fiona said: “I would celebrate my birthday every year when my business was not doing so good. Since I am having good luck on a row for a few years now, I would not celebrate my 60^th birthday this year and the next.”

And the list can just go on and on. But what is the essence of what Uncle Chan, Uncle Lee and Aunty Fiona had said?

Well, everything can simply be summed up to: “You cannot have a perfect life.”

This is in accordance to I Ching too: When an affair has developed to its fullest, it will take a downturn and start from the bottom. The I Ching hexagram ‘splitting apart’ (山地剥) would be followed by ‘recovery’ (地雷复). So the Chinese would try to prevent anything from getting to its maximum and collapses. One of the way to prevent devastating failure to one’s luck is to make sure that his/her luck would never reach the maximum allowable limit.

In old days, there was an old Taoist sect known as the ‘Torn Shirt Sect’ (破衣教) where all of the followers must wear torn clothing throughout their lives. Such act was to prevent the practitioners from feeling contented by their accomplishments and hence attracted bad luck instead. Other types of Taoist Sects may require their disciples to swear on having a shorter life span and no offspring for the rest of the life. All of the above only meant to ‘force’ down the followers’ luck after they had learnt Taoist magic that was supposed to boost their luck. This is actually an effort to balance the law of nature.

There are just too many examples nowadays when people are having good foods, excellent houses, cars, partners, clever children and etc. and they are not happy as what entailed their wealth are their poor health, cash flow problems and a series of mishaps. A very good example was my former department manager after being promoted to the height of his career, he suddenly suffered from double kidney failures and he had to give up everything he had fought for.

I tried those advises from the rich Hong Kong rich ones and it worked for me at least that I do not have too much problems in my life to date. Of course, I cannot guarantee the method would work for you too. But, if you think you are having bad luck for many years; why not just give it a try? Of course, if you are amongst the top few multi-billionaires; then you are exempted as losing a few millions of dollars is only a chicken feed to those few lucky ones. But for ordinary folks like you and me, can you imagine that we lost one million dollars overnight? So, don’t complaint.

Of course, other methods to increase luck is to do charity works and donate blood. Whatever choices you choose: good luck or bad luck that is entirely up to you.

The Scents Of Ghosts (鬼魂的气味)

Do spirits have scents? Yes. They do.

For those folks who like to venture into tropical jungle in Malaysia, at times they would be able to smell very fragrant smell. The experienced ones would advise new comers just to keep quiet as some spirits might be lurking around. Local Malays believe that a pontianak (female vampire) carries the scent of ‘sundal malam’ or polyanthus lily (夜来香). However, not all spirits are fragrant. The spirit of a person died in fire could carry the scent of burnt meat while a drowned ghost would carry the smell of mud if it died in a river, and if a drowned ghost is from sea; then it will have the scent of salt water.

Normally speaking, an ordinary ghost would have the scent of smelly socks, salted fish and shrimp paste. A friend of mine, Aunt Fiona who migrated to Toronto, Canada and then returned to Hong Kong a few years later told me her side of the discovery.

Aunt Fiona bought a second hand house in Toronto and moved in to the house happily. A few weeks later, her family members were being disturbed by a series of ghostly knockings on their room doors at night. When they opened the room doors, there was no one to be found. Slowly Aunt Fiona started to experience hag-ride at night. She knew when the hag-ride will take place as she could smell the odour of smelly socks approached her and at the same time, Fiona could feel her bed rocked as if a boat was sailing in choppy sea. Strangely speaking, her hubby couldn’t feel anything at all. Then Fiona felt her body was bound by some invisible force which could last throughout the night.

Gradually, Aunt Fiona started to see things normally when she was alone. According to Fiona, at first she saw the ghostly apparition of an old Englishwoman shouting at her and asking her to get out of the house. Then Aunt Fiona saw the figure of an old Englishman sitting in the living room sofa. As per norm, the materialisation of the ghostly couple would be preceded by the scent of smelly socks. Aunt Fiona has kept her secret for a long time for she didn’t want to cause her household to panic.

One day, she took the opportunity to return to Hong Kong to visit her relatives. She told her relatives about her ordeal with these foreign ghostly couple, and her relatives introduced a Taoist master whom she later brought to Toronto to perform an exorcism ritual.

The master followed Aunt Fiona to her Toronto house and he invoked his patron god to possess him. After some chanting and headshaking activities, the now possessed master said: “I cannot exorcise these two ghosts out because they were the original owners of the house.”

Fiona panicked and said hysterically: “Well, they certainly can’t stay with me!”

The master shook his head again and after a while he spoken: “I can only chase them to stay in your garage for now, if they disturb you again; then I shall do something…”

Without waiting for Aunt Fiona’s consent, the master in a trance started to dance and wielding his peach wood sword and pointed the sword towards the garage. After a while the master told Fiona to set up a tablet inscribed with the words ‘nobody’ (无名氏) as a means for the ghostly couple to stay put. After the ritual, Fiona paid the master a hefty sum including a return ticket to Hong Kong.

Aunt Fiona did enjoy about two weeks’ peace of mind until one day, she started to smell the odour of stinky socks again. She knew the ghostly couple had broken loose again. This time Aunt Fiona decided not to bother about the ghosts and went on with her daily life. Her nightmare was officially over when her hubby had to return to Hong Kong to take care of his new business. Aunt Fiona’s house was then sold to another Hong Kong migrant.

One year later, the new owner returned to Hong Kong for some business; he met Aunt Fiona. They chatted casually for a while and the new owner suddenly said: “I could swear there was a dead mouse or something like that in that house for I always smell the scent of rotten meat!”

Head On Collisions (撞到正)

Normally ghosts would avoid collide with human beings because normal human have stronger and denser aura compared to ghosts. When ghosts do collide with human kind, they would temporary be disintegrated or trapped inside human bodies for a very long time; or until the ghosts are released or upon the death of the human hosts. So, old folks believe that ghosts would normally travel along road sides or building sides. Hence, people are advised not to lean on walls after dark especially during the ghost month. Of course, the more powerful ghosts would not be afraid of human especially those people experiencing bad luck.

My friend Stephen likes to travel. Many years ago he visited Fraser Hill and he stayed in a guesthouse on the slope. After dinner and since the sky was still quite clear, Stephen decided to walk along the tarred road going downhill. He walked and walked for about an hour or so and the sky started to drizzle. So, Stephen decided that it was time for him to head back the cottage and settled for the evening.

Perhaps in the midway, Stephen heard sounds as if boots striking on the road. The more he listened to the sound, he was quite sure that at least a group of uniform unit personnel were marching down the road. Being himself as a scout during his school days, there is no mistake about those uniformed sounds were from some well trained and highly disciplined professions.

Since there is only one road up and down, Stephen had no way to avoid the ones who marched down the road. At the same time too, he was curious who would march during this odd hour. Then after taking a sharp turn, Stephen saw in front of him was a uniform unit in khaki uniform and leather boots marching head on towards him. He was curious as those marching folks looked like Japanese Imperial Army marching in files. No one can imagine that one would come across Imperial Army in 2000’s of the 21^st century unless someone is making a movie figuratively speaking.

There was no escape for Stephen so he just stood dumbfounded in the middle of the road waiting for the strange troopers’ next course of action. As Stephen waited, the Imperial Army procession became clearer. And they ware what Stephen thought they were alright. There was no sign that the army procession would stop or any attempt on the marching folks to avoid Stephen, they just march on a head on collision course towards Stephen.

When Stephen was preparing for the worse, suddenly the whole battalion of army marched through terrifying Stephen with him staying put in the middle of the road. And in a jiffy, the procession passed through Stephen and gone from his view after the military folks took a corner turn.

As recalled by Stephen later, he was as if hit by a chilled breeze that had penetrated his physical body and he could feel that something went in from in front of his body and it exited from his back. At one point, Stephen started to wander if it was himself that was transparent, of the procession of the Imperial Army.

Of course, I personally think what Stephen bumped into was some imprint from the past which has no intelligence at all. Hence, those ghostly apparitions cannot interact with Stephen.

However, another pal of mine; James was not so lucky.

It was during the Chinese Ghost Month two years back, James returned home from his Friday night fiesta and apparently he really had a mug too many. Instead of walking on pedestrian paths, he walked or should I rather say that he staggered along the side of the building perhaps due to alcohol intoxication. As he was making his way along the building wall, suddenly bumped into someone who also moved alongside the building wall.

Just before James could say ‘excuse me’, the figure bumped into James. As recalled by James, the sensation of the collision was very odd. He felt the figure as if bumped straight into his body as if entering into a tight-fit shirt. He couldn’t recall if the thing has exited from his body after the collision. But since then, James felt that he is carrying another person inside him. At times James could hear a voice talking to him. For example, when James wanted to order chicken hamburger, the voice would say that he likes fish fillet instead.

A few months later, James’s inner voice suddenly said that it wanted to leave and the only way was to ask James to commit suicide. It can only leave James once he is dead. After the voice has pestered James for long enough, he finally sought help with my guru Rinpoche. Apparently, it was a ghost that had trapped inside James’s body which was subsequently being delivered to the other side. And, after the spirit was gone; James did not hear the voice again.

Restless High School Students (不安分的高中生)

This is a story told by a friend, Kenny who studied in a high school in Melbourne, Austria some 20 years ago.

It was said that two high school students, one Austrian and one Indonesian were attacked and killed by a few drunkards in the school hostel cafeteria and toilet at night when they were performing revision for their term examinations. Since the murder of those two unfortunate students, their restless souls were said to be haunting the school hostel ever since. Other students claimed to have seen the apparitions wandering in the hostel at night and rumour has it that whoever seen the ghosts, they would follow the one who noticed their presence and play pranks of this unfortunate people.

When Kenny first stayed in the students’ hostel, his friends warned him about not to go to the hostel cafeteria and the toilet especially at night as both places were believed to be haunted. One night, Kenny had to use the cafeteria toilet in the middle of the night because the hostel toilet was being closed for repair. After Kenny has relieved himself and as he walked back to the hostel, his roommate Daniel claimed to have seen two bloody figures followed very closely at Kenny’s back as he returned to their room.

Daniel immediately evacuated the room and put up with the guys next door for the night leaving Kenny alone for the night. Somewhere after midnight, Kenny heard some scratching noise came from a wooden closet as if someone or something were scratching the closet door with sharp objects. He thought that must be the rats so he jumped up from his bed and switched on the light and opened the closet door but found nothing was there.

Kenny then returned to his bed to sleep. Not a moment too soon, just as Kenny had pull over the blanket; he heard disembodied knocking came from all four sides, top and bottom. Feeling agitated and curious, Kenny pulled down the blanket which was covering his head. As soon as he done so, he felt some cold air was blowing into his left ear as if someone was breathing very closely beside him. Then he heard a disembodied voice: “Don’t think I will let you go even you can’t see me…”

This time Kenny felt an invisible force has bound him in his bed and he couldn’t move. Then tow bloody faces came before him. Both of those faces started to press against Kenny’s face and they seemed to continue to smell his face and then used their tongues to leak all over his body. At this point, Kenny said that he was as if laying on a piece of ice block but there was nothing he can do but to pray. Both ghosts only left Kenny alone before day breaks. As recalled by Kenny, that particular night was his most unforgettable night because it was his first encounter with the supernatural. And, also for the first time in his life; Kenny was harassed by these two spirits.

Right after Kenny’s eerie encounter in the school hostel, he became seriously sick and his parents thought it would do Kenny good if he could return to Penang for recuperating. So, Kenny had to end his study in Melbourne short and returned home.

At first Kenny thought he could kiss both molester ghosts goodbye by leaving the high school. Unfortunately speaking, both ghosts followed Kenny back to Penang and continued to haunt him an another few months. Luckily speaking, there were many masters helping Kenny to get rid of the spirits. According to one master, both ghosts followed Kenny back by hiding themselves inside Kenny’s suitcase when he was packing his belongings in the hostel room.

After both ghosts were apprehended and Kenny recovered from his sickness, he returned to Melbourne to complete with his studies. Up till today, Kenny still wonders why he was picked by both of the ghosts as there were hundreds of students around. The only scapegoat is just ‘bad luck’.

Hearse Drivers (柩车司机)

Another source for ghost stories would be the hearse drivers for these professionals are tasked to transport dead bodies throughout the countries days and nights.

John is an experienced hearse driver for 15 years and though he admitted that it is most of the time just mind over matter. However, once he was tasked to send the corpse of an old nanny back to her hometown in Sitiawan, Perak from JB. The whole journey would take almost 9 hours and John started his journey at around 10pm the night before so that he could reach Sitiawan in the morning. So happened that the nanny’s 20-year-old grandson, Jimmy wanted to hitchhike along and John was just too happy to comply because he dreaded to take up this long travel alone perhaps due to boredom.

The hearse reached Batu Pahat at around 12 midnight, John wanted to take a short break and stopped the hearse beside a food stall. He invited Jimmy to join him for a tea break and both of them alighted the hearse and enjoyed themselves. About half an hour later, John thought it was time for him to resume his journey and he signalled Jimmy to go into the hearse.

Before John started driving, Jimmy who was sitting beside the driver seat suddenly wanted to move to the back seat where the casket was placed. Though that was odd and a little scary for a living person to sit beside a corpse; John thought Jimmy just want to sleep more comfortably as it was indeed more spacious in the back.

About an hour or so after departing from Batu Pahat, somewhere approaching Seremban; John suddenly heard the sound of moaning and groaning came from backseat where Jimmy was supposed to be resting. So, John stopped the hearse by the roadside and turned his head to find out what had happened. There he saw Jimmy who was supposed to be sleeping suddenly opened his eyes wide and said in an old woman’s voice: “I want to go home… I want to go home now…”

After murmuring a few words, Jimmy suddenly opened the backdoor and ran out from the hearse. Worrying something bad might happened to Jimmy, John gave chase and he was able to catch hold of Jimmy and secured Jimmy onto the ground. The commotions of them struggling by a house woke the tenants out. A man came out to investigate as he thought two drunkards were fighting beside his house.

When asked, John told the man what had happened. The man then returned to his house and returned with a bottle of cold water; and he subsequently poured the water onto Jimmy’s head and recited some mantra. After a while, Jimmy calmed down and he was himself again. Somehow he was curious as what he was doing out of the hearse in the darkness.

Another hearse driver, Pak Haji told me that once when he was sending a deceased lady from KL to Penang at night alone, just somewhere before reaching Kuala Kangsar; he heard the voice of a lady weeping very sorrowfully. He immediately looked at the rear mirror but he found nothing unusual. Then he suddenly noticed a presence in the passenger seat beside him… It was the figure of a black-faced, long-haired women in white. She just stared straight without any facial expressions.

Pak Haji knew it was the restless soul of the deceased he was despatching. So, he slowly said to the eerie figure: “Calm down mam, I am trying to send you home for prayer in the morning.” According to Pak Haji, the lady in white sat beside him for a few minutes or so and vanished.

In another incident, when Pak Haji was despatching another deceased to Teluk Intan; he heard the moaning sound of an old man came from the gasket in the hearse compartment. Then some knockings on his side mirror and he saw a puchong moved parallel to the hearse. Pak Haji knew that perhaps the deceased was some kind of ‘bomoh’ (shaman) in the possession of a Hantu Raya (big ghost). Because the bomoh failed to release his kept ghost; it has nowhere to go but to follow the lifeless corpse.

So, Pak Haji stopped the hearse by the road again and invited the pochong to go into the hearse. He said to the pochong: “Please come into the hearse and join your master. Let God make the judgement later.”

Very strangely too, after Pak Haji has said those words; the pochong vanished into thin air. According to Pak Haji, we should not be afraid of those supernatural beings for the more we are afraid; then the more likely they would disturb us.

If you care to speak to those hearse drivers, maybe you will hear their side of the stories. The question is: It may be a person’s first time and last time to see a hearse driver!

Throwing Spiritual Sucker Punch (灵性拳击)

Reciting mantra when a person is facing with a ghostly encounter might be a wise move provided that he/she has been reciting the mantra for a long time; or that this person understands the meaning behind the mantra or he/she is empowered to do so. Otherwise, pretending not to see the ghost is the best move for anyone who recites mantra on ad hoc basis would be same as throwing a spiritual sucker punch to the ghost. If a person starts to recite ‘Namo Amitabah’ or ‘Guanyimma’ in front of a ghost and he/she has no background whatsoever about the said religion; then this person is basically telling the ghost: “Suck it to me!”

When I started to learn Mao’shan sorcery, my sifu at that time asked me and a friend, Stephen to go into his altar as the master wanted to show us the power of his 5-ghosts. The 5-ghosts of old time are actually spirits of children of below 14 years old and in order to train these 5-ghosts, a sorcerer must first collect 5 pieces of finger bones from 5 intelligent kids. These bones were normally kept in 5 separate little wooden coffins which are sealed with talismans to prevent the ghosts from wandering out. Nowadays of course, the 5-ghost systems from Taiwan would be much weaker compared to old times but that was old time then.

Our sifu asked us to stand still beside his altar while he started to called upon his 5-ghosts so as to lift their individual little coffins into the air. As the sifu was concentrating with his mantra recitation, the 5 little coffins started to vibrate at first and then all of them were lifted up into the air!

Then, all of a sudden, all of the 5 coffins flung towards Stephen and hit him in his face. I was stunned by the sudden change. The sifu opened his eyes and shouted at Stephen: “What do you think you are doing?”

Stephen answered in a shaken voice: “I was very afraid, so I recite the Vajrakilaya mantra for protection…”

Sifu continued to yell at Stephen: “You want to bind, burn and kill my 5-ghosts! No wonder they are furious at you. Now, please leave my place and don’t return again for your own safety.”

Of course, I didn’t learn the 5-ghost ritual from my Mao’shan master either as I was learning the Tantric ritual and I was forbidden by my guru Rinpoche to have anything to do with Taoist magi then. When I brought Stephen’s case with the Rinpoche, he said Stephen wasn’t aware of the meaning of the mantra. Further, he must also learn the full Vajrakilaya ritual to be able to utilise the mantra for subduing demonic entities.

So, my take is just to leave the ghosts alone and pretend you didn’t see it instead of asking it to ‘suck it to you’. Then and again, the choice is still yours.

Ghost Thefts (鬼偷)

A group of international students enrolled with a language school in Willington, New Zealand to study English language preparatory course to prepare for the following year’s examination. As per norm, lodgings for foreign students are provided so that these students can have a smooth start with their courses. Normally the school administration would look for houses around the city for these students as most schools do not own hostels.

Albert, Ben, Clara, Daniel and Elisa were foreign students arranged to share a house just outskirt of Willington. It is the policy of the language school to mix students of various nations together so that they can appreciate each other’s culture and language. But this is not normally the case. For example: Albert from France and Ben from Germany would not enjoy Clara’s ‘belacan’ (shrimp paste) from Malaysia, and when Daniel prepared his spicy Indian curry; almost everyone would just vacate the house temporarily. Likewise, Elisa from Hong Kong would just overloaded the common fridge with her food stuffs…

One day, Elisa found her gold ring went missing from her room and she suspect one of her house mates might be the culprit. Because of lack of evidence, she chosen to keep quiet. Then it was Clara’s gold necklace that failed to be found after she took a shower in the house common washroom. She could just blame herself as Clara didn’t lock her room door while she was away. Then Daniel misplaced his wallet and he had to lodge a report to the school administration and the authorities. A few days later Albert and Ben started a quarrel between them because Albert suspected Ben to have taken his iPhone; while Ben thought Albert stole his CD player instead. Both of them used to drink in each other’s room.

Gradually the news of thefts spread like wild fire and the school authority wanted to put a stop on thefts in student hostels so that the school reputation is not jeopardised. So, Albert, Ben, Clara, Daniel and Elisa were sent to different student houses right after the short semester break. None of them objected the school’s arrangement of course.

The night before the 5 guys were scheduled to move, Clara woke up around 3am to go to loo. When she passed through the common kitchen, she saw the figure of a man wearing a cowboy hat and a windbreaker through the kitchen glass panel standing by the dining table. Clara could only see the stranger’s back as he tugged his hands into his windbreaker pockets to get something. Then Clara saw the man took out a gold ring, a familiar gold necklace, a man’s wallet, an iPhone and a CD player. He put all the stuffs on the dining table; and as if he noticed Clara was looking at him, the stranger suddenly turned his head and gave Clara a sinister smile…

As soon as Clara looked into the stranger’s face, she gave out a sharp shriek. As recalled by Clara later, she finally saw the face of the stranger and she sworn that it wasn’t the face of a human being she was looking at because the stranger’s face was glowing with green light and he has no eye balls!

Others who heard Clara’s scream immediately came to her aids. At the same time, the stranger with a green glowing face faded into the thin air. Clara told her housemates what she just saw and all of them went into the kitchen dining table to inspect stuffs leftover by that ghostly visitor. Those were the guys’ lost items alright. Everyone was happy to get their items back though someone would suspect Clara of making the story up. Elisa suddenly remembered that she too saw a figure wearing a cowboy hat wearing a windbreaker in her room when she returned from the school library one night before she lost her gold ring. As usual, Elisa must pass through her room window every time she enters or exits the house. So there has no doubt what she saw. Elisa didn’t mention the ghostly figure because her room was still locked when she returned; and she was not so superstitious then.

Since Clara was somewhat became a ‘suspect’, she brought her doubt to me after she returned home one day. Maybe I am as baffled as she is about why the ghostly man stole from the guys and returned all their stuffs. Perhaps it just wants to chase away whoever was staying in that house; or it just want to attract attentions?

Unusual Fatalities In Kopisan Baru (新咖啡山死亡事件)

The map of Kopisan Baru. The Fat Yeah Temple is located some where on Jalan Balai, which is the centre of the area.

The background:

As reported in Sin Chew Daily on November 24^th, 2016 the Kopisan Baru New Village in Gopeng has seen very unusual high fatality rate of local residents. There were already about 50 people died to date. At the same time the Fat Yeah Temple in Kopisan Baru Village was building Ksitigarbha Temple project. Many villagers are doubtful if this project has anything to do with the high mortality rate lately.

It is reported that this year’s mortality rate is especially high compared to last year same time. Since the beginning of Chinese New Year, news of villagers died can be heard on a roll. Most of the deaths happened to those senior citizens of more than 60 years old mainly due to old sickness. However, the fatality rate decreased during these two months compared to previous months.

From the record, Kopisan Baru has about 1,200 households and about 6,000 villagers. The Chinese made up of 75% of the population. If taken the mortality rate between March and November 2016, then within 9 months; the fatality rate has reached 0.9% of local populations.

A villager said that his sister’s mother-in-law who was 68 years old died a few days before the Chinese New Year. The mother-in-law was still riding her bicycle to go out of her house in the morning and as she returned home preparing to slaughter a chicken, she just dropped dead. Another mother-in-law of his another sister who was long time bedridden and around 80-years-old also died in the middle of this year.

Another gravedigger said that the most deaths occurred during March and April, he has not come across such a situation since he started this job. But, the gravedigger also mentioned that most of those who died were old folks due to aged and sickness.

In Macro Feng Shui perspective:

Let us review the fatality incidents in Kopisan Baru and see if the construction work in building Ksitigarbha temple did caused the fatality rate to soar in Kopisan Baru.

First, the location of Fat Yeah Temple is located in the centre zone of Kopisan Baru. In 2016, flying star 2 dropped into the central zone and any major work in this zone will cause serious illness. Since the construction of Ksitigarbha temple work is right at the centre of Kopisan Baru, then it is highly possible this is the culprit.

Since the construction work continued in February 2016, double stars 2 aggravated the occurrences of serious illnesses. Then in a series of months: May, June, July, August, September, October and November injuries and illnesses hit Kopisan Baru on a roll. Since the old would be more vulnerable than the young, hence more mortalities on senior citizens.

Luckily, the on slaughter would halt in December 2016 onwards to January 2017.

So, everything has an explanation indeed. Of course, this post is meant for discussion purposes only.

Loudmouthed Jack N Gill (衰多口)

There are times when it is best just to keep our mouth shut. But when we must speak out, then we should just mind our language for when we are least expected; someone or ‘something’ might be offended. If that is someone who gets offended, then we might be beaten up. However, if it is something that gets offended; then this ‘thing’ may follow us for a long time. I have some stories just along this nature to share:

Story 1:

Some years ago, a HK TV hostess, Gill went to Henan, Kai’feng (河南开封府) to make a program about tourism in Henan. The TV crews came to the Temple of Judge Bao (包公祠) for coverage. In the middle of filming, the program director decided to take a break. At this point, Gill went into the Bao Temple just to look around while waiting for the director’s signals.

As Gill was looking at Judge Bao and his wife’s statue, somehow she commented that Mrs. Bao was ‘not so good looking’ and went off with her program shooting. An hour or so later, the director decided to call it a day and the crew returned to their hotel to rest for the day. Gill was given the rest of the day off to do her shopping while others were busying editing and reviewing the film.

Gill returned to her room quite late and she soon entered into her slumber land very soon. However, in the midst of making her sweet dreams; Gill suddenly awakened by a gust of chill air blowing into her blanket. At first she thought she has forgotten to shut the window. It was quite late into November and the weather was very cold and dry. So she opened her eyes and turned her face towards the window only to noticed the silhouette of a lady worn in old Chinese costume looking at her. Before Gill can make any senses of what she just saw, the weird lady suddenly jumped onto Gill and used her dried and cold hands trying to squeeze Gill’s throat.

At this close range, Gill suddenly recognized the lady looked somehow resembled the statue of Mrs. Bao in the temple. Gill was not superstitious so she started to struggle with Mrs. Bao and as she struggled, she suddenly rolled over her bed and fell onto the floor. All of a sudden, Mrs. Bao has disappeared and it was already 5am. Gill thought the Mrs. Bao was just the imprints of Mrs. Bao since she did stand in front of the statue for quite a while commenting on that statue. Gill soon forgotten her nightmare as she would travel back to Hong Kong after a few more shots in local tourist spots.

It seemed that Gill was wrong. This Mrs. Bao followed her even when she returned to Hong Kong. This Mrs. Bao would visit Gill every other few nights trying to strangle her. At times, Gill had to struggle with this Mrs. Bao throughout the nights. According to Gill, this Mrs. Bao’s restless soul continued to disturb her for the next 10 years or so. She can’t even have a steady boyfriend during that period as when they were getting intimate, this Mrs Bao would suddenly appear in her back hence gave her potential partner a shock and flee in the dead of the night.

One day by chance, Gill came to Penang for a documentary making and she called me for an afternoon tea. When she asked if this Mrs. Bao was still following her, I took a sip of tea and said: “It is not Mrs. Bao but a narrow minded female ghost was preying on you. She just wanted to teach you a lesson for your comments on Mrs. Bao. You can buy some tofu, bean sprouts, some cold rice with cold water and some joss papers to send her off.”

Gill was a little doubtful of the simplicity of my methods. So, I told her again: “Things are simple if you know how. Unless you want to be single and available for the rest of your life; then just keep her with you then.”

Last time I heard Gill had retired from her entertainment job and got married. I guessed she did my ritual after all.

Story 2:

Jack was a HK actor. About 10 years ago, he was sent to a local cemetery to do a paranormal documentary show. During a short break, Jack sat by a tomb and his vision wandered about as he waited for the signal of the film director. As Jack waited, his sight suddenly locked onto the photo of a pretty young lady on the tombstone beside him. Due to curiosity, Jack approached the photo and used his hand to rub against the photo so as to get a clearer view.

As Jack was rubbing the dead girl’s photo, he started to murmur: “If you have not die so young, you would be a pretty 18-year-old lady by now. It is very pitiful indeed…” So, Jack spent about 10 minutes or so to talk to the photo. Then the director’s voice broke Jack’s conversation with the photo and he returned to his filming crew to complete the filming task.

A few days later, Jack started to have wet dreams. As recalled by Jack, the lady in the photo came to Jack and told Jack that she heard what Jack said to her; so she came to Jack to accompany Jack. Since then, this lady would visit Jack at least twice a week and then she came almost every night.

Jack’s mother gradually felt something was not quite right with her son because Jack suddenly became very passive and that his eye became swollen and black indicating this young man has an overactive sex life. So Jack’s mom started to seek help but many masters refused to help because they said that it was Jack who invited the lady ghost first; hence it was Jack who wronged with the ghost first.

When my guru Rinpoche came to Hong Kong, Jack’s mom brought Jack to see the Rinpoche. According to the Rinpoche, it was not the lady ghost that disturbed Jack but a wandering spirit in the vicinity. So, the Rinpoche took some dough and asked Jack’s mom to rub the dough around Jack’s kidneys and then threw the dough opposite the direction of Jack’s zodiac animal. The ritual had to be repeated for a few times until the spirit left Jack.

As I heard, Jack was free from the grip of the ghost after more than 10 years or so.

Story 3:

This is a story I heard from a 40-year-old cancer patient. Let’s call him Jack for simplicity. Jack was still on medication fighting his cancer while I talked to him. He is a Christian and this incident happened to him in Hong Kong starting about 20 years ago.

Jack’s pa died very early and it became Jack’s habit to visit his pa’s grave twice a year when he was about 20-years-old. Every time he visited his pa’s grave, Jack would also visit another grave beside his pa’s grave though they are not related. What attracted Jack was that the photo attached on the tomb stone. This tomb beside Jack’s pa was a very old family grave perhaps since Qing Dynasty. The photo was a family photo showing the family members wearing Qing Dynasty court costumes. Apparently the owners of the grave were someone of importance during the old dynasty.

So, every time Jack has the spare time after paying respect to his father’s, he would go to the tomb beside to look at the photos and clean the tomb somehow. Jack discontinued visiting his pa’s grave when he went to work in Singapore for 10 years and only to return to Hong Kong when he was around 30-years-old.

A strange incident happened to Jack when he resumed visiting his pa’s tomb and the tomb next to it. During one of the visits, as Jack was rubbing the old photo; he suddenly heard as if someone was blowing air into his left year but when he looked around, he saw nothing around.

Since the last incident, Jack was experiencing hag-ride for the first time in his life. During that particular night, Jack had a rude awakening as he felt an immense force was pressing onto his body and he couldn’t move. At this point, Jack could only look at the ceiling. The ceiling above him suddenly turned black forming the shadow of a man in Qing government official. This ghostly figure then sticking out his tongue and his tongue gradually prolonged until it reached Jack’s mouth. This mysterious tongue would start to leak Jack’s face and trying to find its way into Jack’s mouth.

After leaking Jack for a while, the tongue would retract to the ghostly figure and it then took a free fall and dropped onto Jack’s body; and it would then use its bony hands to strangle Jack. He started to struggle and then Jack grabbed a bible beside his bed and struck the bible onto the ghostly man. Only after that the apparition loosened its grip onto Jack and disappeared.

Jack would experience a few ghostly attacks every week and it has been going on for about a decade now.  

After listening to Jack’s story, I advised Jack to seek the help of his pastor since he is a Christian. I suspect that the ghost already gone into Jack’s body through his left ear and that Jack’s cancer might be caused by this ghost. I cannot help Jack because of his religious belief, so I wished him well.

So, there you have it. Three stories to remind us to mind our language in front of the dead. Unless you are ‘trained’ to deal with these good brothers and sisters of course.

Guanyimma Vs Brother Mark (观音妈斗风水师)

Guanyimma refers to ‘mother Avalokitesvara’ and she is a popular character within Hokkian folk religion. There are many temples in Malaysia and Singapore dedicated to Guanyimma specifically with many ‘tangki’ (mediums) serve as Guanyimma’s spokesmen and spokeswomen. Whenever the local people have some unsolved problems, they would first pay this Guanyimma a visit to get a reading and advise. Guanyimma’s scope of service ranges from spirit possession to lucky number predictions; and from curing illnesses to Feng Shui consultancy. You just name it and Guanyimma would be willing to help.

Brother Mark has nothing to do with Guanyimma. He is a half-cooked Feng Shui master cum astrologer lurking mainly in Penang. Whenever he has got problems, he would pay me a visit to get a second opinion. However, Brother Mark would always negate my Feng Shui advise for him. So, nowadays, I would just smile and decline to advise Brother Mark further. If you are around Penang for quite a while, you wouldn’t miss Brother Mark as he is quite a high profile Feng Shui master in the northern region.

Now, what has Bro Mark got to do with Guanyimma this time? Well, this has something to do with a Feng Shui audit Bro Mark performed a few months ago.

A businessman, Eric is a faithful Guanyimma follower and one day, he consulted Bro Mark about his late father’s grave Feng Shui. As usual, Bro Mark would say everything is good not according to Feng Shui theory; but according to the fact that Eric is a successful businessman. Naturally, Bro Mark’s comment caused Eric to have some doubt as he knew what he was experiencing; and the fact is that his business was in jeopardy due to cash flow problem. Further, both of Eric’s siblings were diagnosed with cancer and Eric himself wasn’t feeling very good too.

So, when Bro Mark very confidentially assured Eric that his late pa’s grave was okay, Eric wasn’t so confident at all. He needed a second opinion.

As usual, after Eric closed his shop around 9pm, he went to a Guanyimma temple he always patronise. The medium is his old acquaintance, so Eric told this ‘tangki’ friend that he has some doubt about his late pa’s grave. Although Guanyimma was not scheduled to provide service, the ‘tangki’ agreed to help.

So the ‘tangki’ sat in his ‘dragon throne’ and let Guanyimma to possess his body. After a while, Guanyimma came and she started to talk: “Oh dear, oh dear! Your dad’s coffin is already submerged in water and the old man is shivering. You must exhume your dad’s remain or very bad thing will happen soon!”

That really did it. Both Guanyimma and the Feng Shui master were not on agreement! Now Eric became more confused. And, Guanyimma told Eric: “You ask the Feng Shui master to come tomorrow night. We can have a bet with other witnesses around!”

So said, Eric dragged Bro Mark to Guanyimma’s temple the next night. Many people were already there waiting patiently for Guanyimma to serve them. Soon, it was the turn for Eric and Bro Mark. Both of the gentlemen approached the ‘tangki’ now turned Guanyimma. Guanyimma said to Bro Mark: “Hi, Feng Shui Mark! Do you want to bet with me?

“What kind of bet?” Bro Mark asked.

“Well, if what I said about the grave being submerged in water is correct; then you can chop my idol down and burn it in front of my temple. Otherwise, you must eat the remains of the tomb!”

Bro Mark didn’t think Guanyimma knows Geng Shui, so he immediately agreed the bet which was witnessed by about 20 folks then.

A date was selected by Eric to go to his old man’s grave to find out the truth. Eric, the ‘Guanyimma’, Bro Mark and a few gravediggers went to Eric old pa’s grave and the gravediggers started to dig out the grave. As soon as the top soils of the grave were removed exposing the coffin. The folks found that it was true that the coffin had submerged in a pool of water apparently for quite some time already; judging from the colour of the coffin.

While everyone was astonished with Guanyimma’s super accurate prediction, the good old Bro Mark has quietly made his retreat from the scene for he has no appetite for eating those rotten remains!

As far as I know, Bro Mark hid himself for a while and now starting to lurk around hunting for other unwary folks to hire him to do Feng Shui audit. I am sure you will know this character once you see him.

Ghosts Mean Bad Luck (见鬼衰)

Some Chinese believe when a person sees a ghost, then he/she would suffer a three-year bad luck. Maybe now Todd believes the saying has some truth too following his past experiences.

During the turn of millennium, Todd was sent to Pudong, Shanghai to help the setting up of a technology based company as an expatriate. He was given a hostel to stay somewhere outskirt of Shanghai metropolitan city. Since it was not advisable for foreigners to drive in China, Todd was given a personal driver to ease his travelling from the hostel to his workplace every day; and also for Todd to do shopping during weekends.

Everything went well for the first few months until one winter night when Todd flipped and turned in his bed thinking of his already behind schedule project work, suddenly he felt someone was sitting on his chest caused him to feel difficulty in breathing. Though Todd felt his body was seized by some invisible force, he could still open his eyes to see the surrounding. As Todd kept watching, he saw a long haired lady in white sat on his chest.

This mysterious lady started to use her skinny fingers to force open Todd’s jaws and started to blow her cold breaths into his lungs as if performing CPRs. After the lady in white performed her air blowing exercises on Todd for a while she then lifted herself into the air and flew out through the room window and disappeared in to the dark sky leaving disembodied shrieks lingered for quite some time. Todd felt extremely lethargic and cold and he said that he felt his lungs were as if frozen solid and it took him quite a while and after a few does of whiskey to bring his body temperature up again.

At first Todd thought the lady in white was just his imagination due to his work pressure and he soon forgot about his ghostly encounter. A few days later, one of the scaffoldings in the factory construction site suddenly collapses and caused a few casualties. Two workers died in the accidents and Todd’s construction project was ordered to stop by local safety authority pending on an investigation. That was not a good news for Todd who already worried about his belated project progress.

Other than worry and kept his fingers crossed, there were not much one could do but to wait for the authority’s permission to resume work. On the other hand, Todd’s company paid a hefty amount of compensation to the dependants of the deceased to settle the case being brought to court of law. After some delayed and a lot of public relations and assurances, the factory construction project resumed. This hiccup caused the project manager Todd to be in extremely low morale and tensed.  His local clerk-of-works, Jenny suggested Todd to pray in a local temple so that he could seek the protection of local spirits but Todd doesn’t believe in supernatural things.

A few weeks later, another bad news hit Todd. News from his US headquarter that his construction project might be scrapped because of customer preference has changed. Now instead of Pudong, the direction was to look at Chengdu, Sichuan instead. This was another blow to Todd as his company already has a potential candidate for the Chengdu project. That means that Todd might lost his job if the Chengdu project kicked off. Thought unhappy, there was nothing Todd could do as the direction from US headquarter was to wait and see.

Then, another week passed, Todd experienced another hag-ride during his sleep again, this time the mysterious lady in white sat on Todd’s chest and repeated her CPRs. Todd remained as helpless and just as if the ghostly lady was about to finish her CPRs, another creepy man-in-white flew in and sat beside the lady and perform the same CPR exercise on Todd. Todd was tortured for another rounds until he became unconscious and only woke up by the knockings on his door way past noon.

It was Jenny came to visit Todd. She thought something might have gone wrong as Todd didn’t come to work as usual. Todd was to discuss the work progress report with Jenny and in the preparation of the coming visit of his company’s vice president the following Monday. The first sentence Jenny said after seeing Todd was: “Your face is as black as charcoal!”

The vice president visited Todd’s worksite as planned. While the vice president praised the project team for their dedications, he passed Todd a stack of letters and told Todd to distribute them to everyone. And, the vice president also gave Todd another letter asked Todd to open the letter after the vice president himself has left.

So, as instructed, Todd gave all his fellow workers the letters and he returned to his office and opened his. The gist of the letter meant: “You are fired!”

Old folks believe that if a person inhaled a cold breath of a ghost, he/she would be experiencing one year of poverty. And if he/she saw a ghost, then this person will have a bad luck of 3 years. If the belief is true, then Todd would have bad luck for a very long time! However, I have lost touch with Todd and don’t know his whereabouts after he was ‘terminated’.

Hotel Room 1408 (房间1408号)

Lina’s hubby Richard was an antique dealer. She always follows her hubby to go to Macau. While Richard was going to various villages to collect antiques, Lina would shop in Macau and stay in a hotel cum casino run by her friend, Jess. Normally Lina’s stay would be relatively peaceful until she stayed in Room 1408.

About 10 years ago, Lina and Richard went to Macau again and stayed in Room 1408. Normally, Richard would spend a few days doing his business while living Lina alone doing shopping or visiting Jess. This time, something went wrong as soon as Lina checked into Room 1408.

As soon as Lina went into the room, she immediately felt immense headache and consequently she had to lay in the bed to rest. As Lina was resting, she heard a voice whispered beside her ear: “If you feel so painful, why not just jump down from the window and put an end to your miserable life?”

Feeling awkward, Lina then murmured to herself as how to open the window and jump from 14^th floor since there was no window but a piece of large glass panel. Interestingly, the disembodied voice said again: “You can take the stool by the table to shatter the glass and jump down…”

Of course, Lina didn’t follow the voice’s advice because she was too sick to get up from the bed and she thought the voice she heard was only her vivid imagination.

After lying in her bed for one day and Lina’s headache worsened, she went to the hotel’s panel doctor for medications. After some preliminary check-ups the doc found Lina maybe suffered from flu. So, the doc gave Lina an injection and some medicine for her to rest. Lina’s condition didn’t improve so she visited another doctor down the street and being told the same thing: she was having flu. All in all, Lina had visited 5 doctors on a roll within one day.

During the night, Jess invited Lina to have dinner with her and to catch up in a local restaurant. As soon as Lina went out of the hotel, a car suddenly lost control and rammed into a wall just nearly missed her by a few yards. Four persons were killed in the freak accident.

After the dinner with Jess, Lina returned to Room 1408 to rest. It was time for Lina to check out at 12 noon but Lina didn’t go to the hotel front desk. So, the hotel manager went to Room 1408 to check on her condition. Apparently Lina has overslept and only to be awakened by the hotel manager’s door bell. In a state of totally untidy and sleepy condition with her pyjamas still on; Lina opened the room door…

Looking at Lina’s situation, the manager seemed to understand what Lina was facing; so he reassured that Lina can take her time to check out as there is no rush. After sending the manager off, it took Lina another 4 hours to get herself ready. As recalled by Lina, there seemed to be an invisible force preventing she from stepping out of the Room 1408 for every step she took would be as heavy as lifting a 100kg weight.

Eventually Lina had to be half dragged and half propped by Richard to complete the checkout process. It took the couple another hour or so just to get from Room 1408 to the hotel front desk. According to Lina, it was as if performing a tug-of-war with an invisible force. Though some hotel housekeeping folks wanted to help, but Lina thought she must fight the force herself.

As soon as Lina and Richard stepped out from the hotel, a hotel worker told Lina that the Room 1408 was haunted by a lady who hung herself in the room after losing a lot of money in the casino a few years ago. Normally Room 1408 would not be rented out due to many people being disturbed by this restless hung ghost. It still baffles Lina as why Jess recommended her to stay in the room which already known to be haunted.

When Lina asked me about her ordeal with Room 1408, my replied was very simple: just ask the receptionist to change another new room.

The Sea Full Of Ghosts (满海是鬼)

Debora and a few of her friends from Hong Kong went to Phuket for their long yearend holidays and also to escape the winter chillness somewhere around Christmas of 2006. The gang stayed in a budget hotel near seaside and they planned to have barbecue session at the seaside at night and perhaps to swim in the sea to enjoy warm tropical experience. Everything proceeded as planned and Debora et al enjoyed their stayed so far.

Soon the sun started to set and the sky gets dark fast towards the end of the year. In order to escape the disturbances of other holiday makers, the gang have chosen a more remote spot of the beach some distance away from their hotel. Although they were being warned of the safety concerns, since some of the members were martial arts exponents and some shen’gong (神功) masters; so the group thought they should be alright. After all, they only planned to stay on the beach for a few hours or so.

The gang proceeded as planned and while the gentlemen are preparing for barbecue session, the ladies were either helping out with the food or strolling along the beach. Debora likes to swim at night because according to her, warm sea water coupled with cool sea breeze give her different type of sensation every time. Further, shark attack is rare in this part of waters. So, Debora was the first to jump into the sea while others were preparing for the food.

Debora planned to swim to a buoy about 50m away from the shore and returned. The sea was relatively calm with gentle sea breeze blowing at her face and she could hear her friends’ voices on the shore singing and shouting. As Debora was approaching the buoy, she suddenly saw the shadow of a man clinging onto the buoy and waved at her as if asking for help. Feeling a little scared and insecure, Debora decided not to reach the buoy instead but to swim to the shore to get her companions.

While Debora was swimming towards the shore, she suddenly noticed many translucent people: men and women of all nationalities surrounded her and at the same time waved at her as if asking for help. All of a sudden, the sea around Debora was filled with those ghostly figures almost all of them appeared in decaying bloated bodies with bulging dead fish eyes. The apparitions tried to grab hold of Debora as she swam passed them. As Debora swam, she smelled foul odour of decaying dead meats surrounded her making her almost vomit in the sea.

At one point, Debora felt she just couldn’t make it to the shore, she started to wave at her friends on the shore. Luckily, her best friend, Lisa noticed something was wrong with Debora. She immediately asked a good swimmer to help Debora to the shore. A few minutes later, Debora was escorted to the shore safely.

Before Debora could speak out what she thought she saw, she instinctively turned her head and looked at the seaside. She was stunned. There Debora saw the beach behind her was filled with uncountable translucent people crawling from the sea toward the beach. After Debora thought she really had seen enough, she asked Lisa: “Did you see what I saw?”

Lisa who had psychic eyes and she is also a Shen’gong practitioner, replied: “Yes. Maybe these are the victims of past tsunami and now is the time of their anniversary. They probably followed you to the shore… We should just pretend that we have not seen them for our own safety.”

So, the ladies pretended as if nothing had happened and joined the barbecue session. Everyone enjoyed the barbecued meat and beers but not Debora and Lisa. Both of the ladies were shivering and they refused to eat anything. Others thought they were sick but they kept their silence. In the midst of enjoying the feast, someone in the group complaint that somehow their barbecued meat contained the flavour of sea water with rotten flesh.

Soon the beach barbecue session ended and the gang returned to the hotel to rest. Feeling a little awkward that Debora didn’t even eat any of those barbecued meat which was supposed to be her favourite, her boyfriend Mike asked Debora: “Are you feeling not well? I didn’t see you eat any of your favourites…”

Upon being asked, Debora replied: “I didn’t want to say this. I saw many translucent folks licking and eating those barbecued meats along with you on the beach. Their sliver and sea water dripped onto those meats while still being barbecued…”

Of course, Mike just thought Debora was merely having a vivid imagination. Having said so, everyone except Debora and Lisa didn’t suffer food poisoning and had to be hospitalized the next morning.

The Hung Ghost Saviour (救命吊鬼)

It is said that a cat has nine lives. Perhaps it is not too much to say that Aunt Tan has the lives of a cat as she had attempted to kill herself seven times but still lived to tell her story to me!

Aunt Tan is suffering from mental depression and she is also on prescriptions too. One day, she told her daughter that she wanted to go out for a walk but instead, she jumped down from their second floor flat and broke both of her legs. Aunt Tan was subsequently admitted into the local hospital for 6 months and later she was sent to mental asylum for another 3 months. This was her first suicide attempt and she survived.

After returning home from mental asylum, Aunt Tan asked her daughter to buy her some sleeping pills as she complaint of difficult to sleep at night. So, her daughter gave the sleeping pills to Aunt Tan as requested. During one morning when no one was at home, Aunt Tan swallowed the entire bottle of sleeping pills and then laid in her bed to die. But after sleeping for 8 hours or so, she woke up and found herself okay. Feeling a little awkward, Aunt Tan brought the pill bottle to a pharmacy and only to be told that the pills she swallowed were imitations. This was her second attempt to kill herself.

Apparently this old lady wasn’t ready to give up her suicide attempt easily. One morning when Aunt Tan was left alone in her daughter’s house, she took a taxi to Butterworth from Penang. When the taxi passed through the middle of Penang Bridge, she asked the taxi driver to stop and let her out. When the good hearted driver found something wasn’t quite right; he stopped Aunt Tan and brought her to the local hospital. This was her third attempt.

A few weeks following Aunt Tan’s Penang Bridge jump failure, she tried to kill herself by gas inhalation in her house. That attempt too was discovered by her neighbour after smelling gas leaked from her house. It was not a moment too soon when the fire brigade came to rescue Aunt Tan and the whole block too. She was again admitted to mental asylum for three months. This was again Aunt Tan’s fourth attempt.

After a series of suicide attempts, Aunt Tan’s daughter hired a maid to keep an eye on her mother while she goes to work. Looked like the maid tactic worked for another few months until one day, Aunt Tan locked herself in her bedroom and tried to hang herself with a piece of nylon rope. She tied the rope to the ceiling fan and made a loop with the rope. Then she stood on a stool and put her head into the loop. As soon as Aunt Tan kicked the stool off to let gravity do the job, the rope snapped and Aunt Tan fell onto the floor. She was relatively unharmed. A few days later, she tried her luck for the second time. But this time, the ceiling fan gave way under Aunt Tan’s weight and fell onto the ground. Those were the fifth and sixth attempt for Aunt Tan to end her life.

Then one night, Aunt Tan sneaked out from her daughter’s flat and went to a haunted house nearby. She thought by committing suicide in a haunted building would be easier as the ghost in that area would lend her a helping hand to end her life. So said, Aunt Tan went into the haunted house and found the room that a young lady was said to have hung herself. After Aunt Tan tied the rope she was hoping to end her life with to the brim of a window frame, she climbed up to a comfortable height and put her neck in.

As soon as Aunt Tan’s neck was in the loop of the rope, she suddenly saw a ghostly face appeared in front of her. It was the face of a lady with long hair, a pair of bulging eyes, a sticking out long tongue and a rope was still hanging on the lady’s neck. This ghostly lady looked into Aunt Tan’s eyes with her dead fish like bulging eyes and said: “Do you want to look like me?”

Almost immediately, Aunt Tan gave out a sharp shriek; and she took a step back and fell down from a height and fainted. Apparently though Aunt Tan was not afraid of dying, she was indeed afraid of ghosts; moreover, coming face to face with one!

The last suicide attempt by Aunt Tan made her to sit down and think again of all her suicide attempts. Although Aunt Tan is still not fully recovered from her mental depressions, killing herself is definitely out of the question at this moment. Maybe Aunt Tan was saved by a hung ghost after all!

Missing Worker Told His Story (失踪的工人)

As I was told by John, my Thai friend that many of those houses located near Thai and Myanmar borders are built by Myanmar workers. Normally these workers bring along their family members to live in the house they are building and they would only leave upon the completion of the houses. John has many houses that are built by Myanmar workers. These group of people are hardworking folks but some of them like to drink. Once drunk, then these workers willing to fight and kill amongst themselves even because of very trivial matters.

A few years ago, John hired a few Myanmar workers to build a double story house for him near Thailand borders. As usual these workers brought their family to stay in the house they constructed. Somewhere in the middle of the house building work and right after a long holiday season, a worker together with his wife and a child went missing without noticed. No one knows of the family’s whereabouts and other workers thought they had returned to Myanmar. So, new worker was hired to replace the missing one so that the construction deadline would be met.

On the night of the resume of construction work, other Myanmar workers who stayed in the semi-finished house heard voices of child crying and woman yelling for help came from upstairs. The workers went up to investigate but found nothing. Two days later, black liquid with extreme foul smell dripped from seams of wooden floor tile of the upstairs bedroom where the missing Myanmar family used to stay.

Due to curiosity, the other workers removed the floor tiles of that particular room and there they found the decomposing bodies of the Missing Myanmar worker, his wife and child. Looked like the trio were murdered. But since there were lack of evidences and due to many illegals come and went through the border every day; the case was largely ignored.

Since the killing of the Myanmar family, those workers who stayed in the house claimed to have heard eerie voices of woman and child crying for help at night. Some workers sworn they heard disembodied voice singing songs near their ears. Some even claimed that their legs being pulled by an invisible force causing them to fall face down in the house they were building. Gradually, no one was willing to continue with the building of John’s house. New workers hired wouldn’t last for one week or so and consequently John’s house was abandoned.

Last year, John wanted to revive his abandoned project for his nephew. So he went to the house to inspect. When John was going up the staircase and as soon as he reached the 1^st floor, he felt his legs were pulled by some force from behind causing him to topple face down. As recalled by John, once he was down on the floor; he just laid paralyzed on the spot but he could barely turn his head sideway so that he could breath. There seemed to be an invisible force draining all his strengths while pressing him down.

Then, a ghostly scene appeared before John: the missing Myanmar worker was drinking beer with a young man and after a while, both men became quite drunk and suddenly a quarrel broke out between the two. In a gist of fury, this young man pulled out a knife and stabbed John’s worker repeatedly for many times until he laid in a pool of blood. Then the killer went to the bedroom to kill the victim’s wife and child who tried to save themselves by hiding in a closet.

After the killing, the killer hid the bodies under the floor tiles. After the killer managed to clean up the place, he turned his head to face John as if wanted to take John’s life too. That was the most familiar face of John’s another young Myanmar worker who was fired because of theft. Panicked, John struggled with all his might to free himself. Due to extremely fright, he was finally able to yelled out loudly and then fainted.

When John was finally regained consciousness, his son, Ron was at his side. Ron said that since his father had gone out for quite a while, worried of his father’s safety; his mother asked Ron to go to the house to investigate. There Ron found his father was lying like a log on the upstairs floor. When he approached his father, John just struggled as if he has seen a ghost and just as when Ron touched his shoulders; John yelled frantically and passed out.

After John’s scary experience, the double story house was being left alone once more. I visited John and he brought me to that haunted house and told me his story. However, I didn’t feel anything too scary there though it was quite creepy to enter a house with such a tragic history.

Premonitions Of The Dead (死者的讯息)

The topics on deaths are not everybody’s cup of tea. But the below stories may help someone to notice a problem early, so it is worthwhile to mention what the dead will foretell the love ones with their last visible hidden massages.

Story 1:

A few years ago Aunt Ann’s mother passed away. All of Aunt Ann’s siblings were present in the funeral service except for Aunt Ann’s sister, Jessica. During the last day of the funeral service just before the deceased was to be cremated, Aunt Ann suddenly noticed blood came out from her late mother’s mouth. Condensation was being ruled out as the blood was quite fresh and red. She felt something was wrong and she thought perhaps her mother wanted to see her sister Jessica for the last time. So, Aunt Ann went to Jessica’s house to give her a call in person since Jessica didn’t pick up her phone.

Jessica was staying alone in a double story house at outskirt of the town. When Aunt Ann reached Jessica’s place, the door was locked. Luckily Aunt Ann has the house keys. So, she proceeded to open the house door. To Aunt Ann’s shock, Jessica was lying face up unconscious in the living room with white foam like substance came out from Jessica’s mouth. Immediately Aunt Ann carried Jessica into her car and brought her sister to a local hospital.

Sadly, Jessica was pronounced dead on arrival to the hospital. Now, Aunt Ann had to arrange for two funeral services. She kept blaming herself as not have paid enough attention to Jessica’s medical condition. At the same time, she too was thankful to her late mom’s last warning to her about Jessica.

So, Aunt Ann told her story to warn others to pay particular attention on the last message of the deceased that might be able to save lives or prevent disasters.

Story 2:

Aunt Wong said that she noticed something was not quite right when she saw yellowish liquid produced from her late father’s eyes. At first, she thought it was water condensate due to air conditioning. But she soon ruled the assumption out as the water should be colourless.

Within one year after the death of Aunt Wong’s father, all of the fishes in a fishpond suddenly died overnight. Then her 4^th and 2^nd uncle suddenly suffered from cancer and the 4^th uncle died subsequently leaving the 2^nd still struggling with cancer until now. At the same time, Aunt Wong’s 3^rd uncle married again in that particular year. Meanwhile, Wong’s family factory also had to close down due to financial problems.

A series of incidents entailed the death of old Mr. Wong made Aunt Wong to think something has gone very wrong. Since she needed a second opinion, Aunt Wong came to me for a ‘free’ consultation.

My assumptions were that there must be something wrong with Wong’s ancestral grave possible caused by cracks of the tomb structures. It is also possible that red and white flowers may be growing on the grave. For short term solution, Aunt Wong can prepare some materials to pray in front of the factory and their houses. If situations are improving, then a further audit of Wong’s ancestral grave should be carried out.