I would like to share this life story of mine.
There's a lot actually, but i will only write about 2 experiences. :)
Hungry Ghost Festival. Hrmm...from what I know of this festival
is that during this particular month, well...as the belief goes,
the gates of Hell opens and ghosts starts to roam the earth.
Then comes the Mortals laying out food offerings for these ghost
and hold prayers to ward off bad luck. :D!! SOUNDS SUPER COOL!
well, to me of course. I don't know why i always get excited
when i heard about any ghostly stuffs. hahahaha.
Ok I digressed. But beyond that, I don't know much.
As in...why does it fall during the seventh month?
Are the ghosts in search of food alone, or more?
Do they like come in groups?! OH MY GOODNESS!
damn cool! imagine a whole army of them.
Would be much more cooler if they're like good-looking
or something. Uhhh...DIGRESSED... again.
Ok...what about the auctions!
Why are they held at the same time?
Where does this festival originate?
I certainly don't think it's from the
Confucianist teachings...? right...?
For the old sage, I do remember that...from what my ahma told me
when a disciple asked how he should serve ghosts and spirits,
was reported to have said that
"Till you have learnt to serve men, how can you actually serve ghosts?
Till you know about the living, how are you to know about the dead?"
Well, basically other than praying and offering to the ghosts.
It's all about "PANTANG" here and there.
It's a Malay word commonly used by all Singaporeans.
My ahma said the full phrase should be "Pantang Larang"
which basically means "taboo". -___-!!!
Whatever I do or say, I must be very wary with them.
Especially during this Hungry Ghost month itself. RAWR! -.-
The most memorable 7th month that I've encountered...
Actually there's quite a number of experiences...
and it all somehow link-ed back
to one another... even up till now...
I don't understand why..is this so.
It was actually during the start of the Hungry Ghosts Festival
during my primary school years when I first experienced it.
I didn't even care about what my dad always warned me
not to step on those burnt joss paper they used for prayers.....
well, naughty me..I just go ahead and walked over it, stepped on it...
even squatted down and played with it. Why...?
because...my dad always shouts and scolded me
when i wanted to play with it. So when it's after school....
It's like my ONLY chance to do it! I don't know why!
Just felt curious and wanted to play with it.
and of course.....after 2 days of playing with it non-stop.
On the 2nd evening after playing with it after school...
When i reached home..hrmm and exactly after i bathed... -___-
My whole body started to itch and gets swollen.
It looks so disgusting that i burst out crying
and scratching non-stop.
My mother couldn't do anything to me,
i kept on screaming and wailing in pain.
Even calamine lotion doesn't help. SUCKY feeling. seriously.
Went over to the private clinic,
and all the doctor gave was CALAMINE lotion too!
Well, of course, it doesn't help. Darn, QUACK doctor.
Waited for my Dad to return home from work.
He looked at my whole body. Glared at me furiously.
( Hey, please la..yeah. He's my dad and i was like only
8 years old back then, nothing much for him as a father
to see anyways! HAH )
Anyways, yeah he just shook his head and asked
if I did anything bad or not. I told him that i played with the
burnt joss papers by the roadsides. :/
He started to scold me. He brought me to my ahma's house.
And I don't know what on earth,they did to me.
Wrapped my whole body with a cloth and splashed me
with that pail of water filled with flowers.
I seriously got no idea why.
next thing i remembered was that...
I was so tired that i slept on my dad's lap after that.
The itchiness stopped, but the red patches on my body
only dissappeared after 2 days. I didn't go to school at all.
And my ahma kept on bathing me with that same pail
of water filled with flowers.
All i got from her is that, during this time of the month.
I must respect people prayers to the ghosts. Cannot anyhow disturb.
See la, the ghost pinch you till you turn red red. Must respect ghost too!
If not this kinda stuffs will happened to me again. bla bla bla
I cried after hearing that. I'm such a baby last time. Geeez.
Whatever it is, that's like in primary 2!
Primary 5, another incident happened.
This time...it's in class itself. I was from Changkat Primary School.
Yes, that very old and creepy looking school.
If you guys are from Tampines and Simei,
you will know which one I'm referring to. :)
My groups of friends all decided to play the pen SPIRIT game.
That's what we called it last time. But now, people know it by
Ouija Boards. I never really thought that there could be a connection
but I do recall now that I did played a version of the Ouija
with my classmates in primary school. We drew a house in the middle
on a piece of large drawing paper.
On the right coner of the paper, we will write Yes Or No,
Female or Male, and in the middle below the house
will be alphabets of A to Z.
A group of us would hold on to a wooden pencil
together and ask any questions that we want.
At first...we chose not to believe that the pencil will move.
Until one of my close friend called out the spirit.
" Spirit come, Spirit go, please come out to play with us."
Apparently, a ‘force’ would guide the wooden pencil and
circle the letters to reveal the answer. We waited for it to happened.
One of us wanted to get out of the game, but we told her not to.
So we waited for like 3 minutes.
And it moved. Yes, I swear by God, it moved.
I chose not to believe it, but I'm not the only one who felt it that day,
all the 4 of us felt it. Darn it....i'm telling you....
My hairs on my arms stood. The blardy pencil moved
slowly towards YES. We didn't want to believe it,
so we blamed one of our friend called Ismail,
asking him to stop playing for it's not funny. But he cried.
He said he didn't moved the pencil. -________-.............
So i decided to break the damn silence for awhile and asked the 'spirit'.
" Are you a female or male? What do you want to play? "
The pencil moved slowly to FEMALE and went on to circle each letters
or the alphabets. Y,O,U which basically means...
this female ghosts wants to play with ME?
I burst out laughing and told the "spirit"
that I didn't want to play with her.
"You're fake" And then I just broke away from the pencil.
It's a MUST to send the spirit home by asking it to go back
and move the pen to the ‘home’.
Only my friends stayed there with the pencil and moved
the pencil slowly to the middle of the house they drew
and POKE plus TORE it. They did that because, that's the only way to
like break the communication with the ghost spirit.
I laughed at their stupidity. Seriously.
I went to the toilet after that, my class was at level 4.
Level 4's toilet stinks. ALWAYS.
So i went up to the level 5's toilet. -_- i was like the only one in the toilet.
After pee-ing. I went over to the basin to wash my hands,
and there beside me, i saw a black figure with long hair.
( sounds cliche? but believe it or not, i saw it. -__- )
No face. FACE-less....What on earth la.
When i turned over fully to face her, she's still there.
The hair is long and straight. But there's no face.
After like looking at her for 5 minutes, my hair started to stand again.
This time i remembered about the spirit game. I quickly went
out of the toilet and went back to class.
I didn't mentioned this to anyone of my friends. After class ended,
i went up to the toilet again. This time with my buddy.
I asked her to wait for me outside the toilet.
Again, i saw the figure. FACe-less.
I don't know why..but i really wanted to know
how this "thingy" looks like.
Call me MAD if you want to. it's just a feeling i have deep within me.
I called out to my friend asking her to come in.
She didn't come in. I called out to her again.
She just simply didn't come in. So i went out to call her in.
So she went in with me and asked me why I asked her to come in.
I asked her if she heard me calling her just now..?
She said she didn't at all. No one was calling her.
I freaked out for a moment. Next...i asked her if
she can see something beside me. She said no.
At this point of time, i freaked out like TOTALLY.
Why is it that I'm like the only one who can see this
"thingy" but not my friend?!!
I just grabbed my friend's hands and ran out of the toilet.
We went home after that. At home, I used to sleep very late at night,
like around 3 am. So, that particular night,
after reading my 367 pages of my novel, I fell asleep.
Something knocked on my room's window.
I opened my eyes to just find that I could not move my body.
I was like "FU*K"
The feeling was like as if all the air around me
solidified and all I could do was to see the
surroundings with my eyes. -__-!!
Fear gripped my heart as I finally realized that I might
not be actually ‘fully awake’. Goodness.
I scanned around my room and found nothing amiss.
So i decided to close my eyes again and relax...this time..
after the few seconds of rest.
I opened my eyes saw saw something on my body.
It's her. Yes. That figure.
That long hair "thingy" with NO FACE.
Why is she on top of my BODY. I couldn't do anything.
BUT..my body started to itch again!
All i did was to apologise to her for not wanting to play with her.
I closed my eyes as my heart pounded damn freaking hard
and willed myself to wake up well of course...
only opened my eyes to find myself still immobilized.
And HER still there! On top of me. I couldn't take it anymore...
So i just muster up all my courage and tried my very best to push her away.
I did. I pushed her away. I shouted out for my mum and dad.
And told them everything. My dad, as always, he scolded me.
He scolded me for being stupid and an idiot to play around
with such stuffs especially during this Hungry Ghost Month. :(
And guess what...? The same old red patches that i had
when I was 8 years old came back. Are they linked?!
Oh well...time and time, over and over again,
I would always close my eyes to will myself
away from this memorable ‘bad dream’.
But it didn't work...up till now..I'm 22 years old.
I can still see her. Whenever i go for camps.Chalets.
Outings with friends, sometimes in the cinemas
and not to forget parks and at the beach.
Even when i go for canoeing..i occasionally spotted her in the waters.
I couldn't care less and just ignored her.
Are there any ways for me not to see her anymore?
Can anyone help me...?
Anyone would like to play the Spirit game with me?
Maybe that's the only way to ask her to go
back to play with herself? I don't know.
To those who knows me, you guys do know about
this problem of mine. I think..the only to help me
is to play the Game with me.
Wanna play? I guess only those who shares the same
experiences as me before will understand how i feel up till now.
Those who can see stuffs.Share it with me yeah.
I would really love to know more about this kinda stuffs.
It's actually quite fun.
This blog post is an entry for
which opens in Singapore cinemas August 7th.
Love asked me to share my real-life experiences with the rest.
So i decided to do just that.
Whether i win it or not. It's up to the judges. :)
But if i really win it, I will bring all of you guys
who entered the contest too for the movie.
We can then meet up and share our real life "great" experiences.
Really can't wait!
