Ghost Horses
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Ghost Horses
Come on, Come on
You think you
Drive me crazy, well
It is that time of the year again, when the air constantly smells like ashes and burning candles. Piles of burnt paper strewn everywhere on pavements and sidewalks, and your parents would apologize sincerely to a group of invisible people that aren't there, especially when you step on one of those piles of burnt paper. After they've apologize to their 'friends', they'd turn to you and give you a smack on the forehead, telling you never to do that again. They'd then give you a lecture on why it is important to pay respect to the 'good friends' in this month of the year. And if you ask them who these 'good friends' are, they will give you another smack on the forehead, and tell you to ask no more of those blasphemous questions. Yes, it is that time of the year all over again.
The hungry ghost festival happens once every year, on the month of July according to the Lunar Calendar. You see, the Chinese have a different way of reading the calendar, and have a set of calendar on their own. It is supposed to be more accurate, but it is not the universally accepted or recognized way of seeing a year. Anyway, the months changes every year, and the beginning of July this year in respect to our normal calendar may not be the same day when next year comes around. The calendar is charted against the movement of the moon, and thus called the 'Lunar' calendar. Anyway, July is the Hungry Ghost Festival - for those people who aren't very sure about what the hell I was talking about - and here's the story behind the month - as I know it, which is not very accurate, but bare with it.
Come on, Come on
You and whose army
You and your cronies
The story of the festival began with this dude with a really long name. This dude with a really long name was the disciple of another dude with an even longer name. Anyway, after learning some skills under the dude with an even longer name, the dude with a really long name started to wonder just what in the world happened to his parents after they died. Somehow, the dude with the really long name managed to see what happened to his mother, and she seems to have been casted down into a realm of Hungry Ghosts after some really bad misunderstandings with the overlord of the underworld. This realm of hungry ghosts is a realm full of...well, hungry ghosts. They are always hungry for something, and his mother is apparently there because of some really bad run-in with the big boss who rules the place. So the dude with the really long name decided to rescue his mother from this hungry ghost realm, and asked Mr. Buddha for help - or something like that. So the doors of the hungry ghost realm was opened for a month for the dude with the really long name to enter and rescue his mother. When the doors were opened however, all the hungry ghosts escaped to the realm of the humans to satisfy their hunger for whatever they were hungry for. In the meantime, the dude with the really long name searches for his mother, and by the end of the month he managed to get her out of the place with a lot of hungry ghosts. All the ghosts were returned back into this realm, and a month every year is then set aside to commemorate the bravery of the dude with the really long name.
Humans are terrified of hungry ghosts, because these hungry ghosts are out of their minds. They would eat anything in their paths, even if it is the luck of us poor humans. Basically, in Chinese mythology, the humans are always afraid of Gods and ghosts, and some demons from the underworld. And thus, they are always doing silly and strange things, thinking that it will wear off evil spirits. With the gates of hell opened wide the whole of this month, all the ghosts are free to run about everywhere. It's like a public holiday or vacation for the demons of the underworld who takes care of these hungry ghosts. For a month in the year, they get to relax and slack as well, without the need to torture these poor souls. They get to sit back and have a cup of burning hot lava (I don't know why I typed lava, I just had that image) while the ghosts head on out to terrorize the human world. In defense, the humans came up with their own sets of defenses.
Come on, Come on
Holy Roman empire
Armed with enough paper money to reclaim a land big enough for a small island, the amount of those collectively around the world used by superstitious Chinese would be able to reclaim a land in the middle of the Pacific and add one more continent to the Geography textbooks. Also, scared humans in the human world would hold concerts in the neighborhood, with performers skimpily clad in flashy costumes, singing dialect songs to the public as well as our 'good friends', who really are the ghosts that escaped from the underworld. The first row of these gigs would be reserved for these invisible friends, and it is a common misconception that these friends enjoy horrendous techno remix of Cantonese and Hokkien songs. I'm sure there are friends out there who prefer rock songs, or even hip-hop - who knows. I mean, I'd like them to play Indie music if I end up in the ranks of the hungry ghosts one day - knock on wood.
Even on a small island such as Singapore, it is not difficult to see practices of such superstition happening all around. You see piles of ashes on pavements and drain covers, and there was a story in my grade school that a student stepped on one of those blackened drain covers and fell into the underworld, never to be seen or remembered by anybody from the human world ever again. I challenged the story, arguing that if the student really fell into the hole and was forgotten by the people in our world, then where did the story come from? The kids back then shrugged their shoulders, and told me that you can never be too careful, that it was better to be safe than sorry. Despite having a superstitious mother, all the traditional practices never came across to me as being logical or rational. I'm a man of science, and I am sure the subject was taught to us since grade school for a reason.
Come on if you think
Come on if you think
You can take us on
You can take us on
The August-September period is a bad time to take strolls on pavements at night. Not because some ghost would jump out from nowhere and grab your ankles like the way they show it in Japanese horror movies. There are people who still believe that by stepping on piles of ashes would bring along a few decades of bad luck, and would try to avoid them as much as possible. The problem arises when these piles of ashes are EVERYWHERE along the pavements of EVERY street in this period of time, and it is almost impossible to avoid them wherever you go. Taking a stroll back home from Corinna's today, we encountered so many piles of those ashes that we'd rather walk on the road and risk our lives against the oncoming traffic. She was terrified of those ashes, and even apologized to a good friend when she accidentally stepped on one. For me, I avoided them because they make my shoes dirty, which is a fact.
The road that led to my place from hers was lined with rows of red candles that burnt softly in the night breeze. It was beautiful from across the road, but it became a little creepy when I was walking down the concrete pavement myself, thinking how nice it would be if they were replaced by Christmas lights instead of eerie red candles burning in the night. It looked like the lights on an airport runway, leading planes down to safety from up above. Only, they were probably leading some other things to land on earth safely, and probably not from the sky either - but underground. Even for a person like me, it was a rather creepy thought to have while walking down the road alone at night. That is especially so after Corinna and I were met with creepy old people in the private housing estate over at Serangoon Gardens. One of them ran out of his house in nothing but his red shorts, and stared at us from over the metal gates with dead eyes. Another old woman sat on a stool in the middle of the driveway, and watched us go by quietly with her silent menace. Creepy people roamed the streets tonight, and I figured that it was better to get home as soon as possible.
You and whose army
You and your cronies
There is something about Chinese superstition which I don't get. They almost always have dumber looking ghosts as compared to Western superstition. In the Western culture, they have vampires that goes around at night, sucking the blood of innocent victims. The Chinese have our very own vampires as well, but they are usually a combination of a vampire and a zombie, and they aren't usually very smart or cool to begin with. In the Chinese culture, the vampires are called Jian Shi, which literally means "Stiff Corpses", because they are really stiff in nature. They are almost always dressed in ugly ancient Chinese wardrobe, with a strange looking hat and a peakcock's feather sticking out of nowhere, and they hop around most of the time. They can't fly like their Western counterparts, nor do they look as cool. The way to kill a Western vampire would be to drive a wooden pole through his heart, throw a cross onto him, spray him with holy water, dump a hell lot of garlic on him or to just hold him long enough until daylight comes. The Chinese vampire will be controlled with a yellow piece of paper with gibberish written on it, stuck to its forehead. It is that easy, really. You can even write it on Post-its.
The above paragraph was typed to calm down the people out there - like my sister - who are freaked out about this time of the month. There are a dozen rules in this period of time, a bunch of things that you cannot do. For example, pick up money from the ground, take elevators alone at night, or kill insects when you see them. Though they all have stories behind them, I find them incredibly impractical. So, in this time of the month we should all walk the staircases even if you live on the twentieth floor? What if you work overtime in an office and you have to get home afterwards? Are you going to walk down fifty floors just to get to the car park? And I don't suppose anybody would be stupid enough to leave a bag of thousand dollar bills lying around by the side of the road, or allow cockroaches to roam your kitchen if you do see one in this month.
You forget so easy
We ride tonight
We ride tonight
Ghost horses
Ghost horses
Seriously, if you see those damn cockroaches, kill them. If you see ants crawling all over your dinner, slaughter them. If you see mosquitoes buzzing around your ears at night, spray them. Whatever it is, I don't think such things should stop in this period of time just because a few thousand years ago, some dude with a really long name decided to save his mother from the underworld. I mean, it is a courageous thing and we should see that as being admirable. But our lives have to go on, and I am sure you would've done the same - dude with a really long name - if you saw roaches crawling all over your food as well. Just as long as you do not go onto the streets and mock the spirits, I don't see why there should be things that cannot be said or things that cannot be done. Spirits were human too, and I don't suppose they become irrational or unreasonable people once they are dead. That is as bad a misconception as the one with the bad techno music.
We ride tonight
We ride tonight
Ghost horses
Ghost horses
Ghost horses
Come on, Come on
You think you
Drive me crazy, well
It is that time of the year again, when the air constantly smells like ashes and burning candles. Piles of burnt paper strewn everywhere on pavements and sidewalks, and your parents would apologize sincerely to a group of invisible people that aren't there, especially when you step on one of those piles of burnt paper. After they've apologize to their 'friends', they'd turn to you and give you a smack on the forehead, telling you never to do that again. They'd then give you a lecture on why it is important to pay respect to the 'good friends' in this month of the year. And if you ask them who these 'good friends' are, they will give you another smack on the forehead, and tell you to ask no more of those blasphemous questions. Yes, it is that time of the year all over again.
The hungry ghost festival happens once every year, on the month of July according to the Lunar Calendar. You see, the Chinese have a different way of reading the calendar, and have a set of calendar on their own. It is supposed to be more accurate, but it is not the universally accepted or recognized way of seeing a year. Anyway, the months changes every year, and the beginning of July this year in respect to our normal calendar may not be the same day when next year comes around. The calendar is charted against the movement of the moon, and thus called the 'Lunar' calendar. Anyway, July is the Hungry Ghost Festival - for those people who aren't very sure about what the hell I was talking about - and here's the story behind the month - as I know it, which is not very accurate, but bare with it.
Come on, Come on
You and whose army
You and your cronies
The story of the festival began with this dude with a really long name. This dude with a really long name was the disciple of another dude with an even longer name. Anyway, after learning some skills under the dude with an even longer name, the dude with a really long name started to wonder just what in the world happened to his parents after they died. Somehow, the dude with the really long name managed to see what happened to his mother, and she seems to have been casted down into a realm of Hungry Ghosts after some really bad misunderstandings with the overlord of the underworld. This realm of hungry ghosts is a realm full of...well, hungry ghosts. They are always hungry for something, and his mother is apparently there because of some really bad run-in with the big boss who rules the place. So the dude with the really long name decided to rescue his mother from this hungry ghost realm, and asked Mr. Buddha for help - or something like that. So the doors of the hungry ghost realm was opened for a month for the dude with the really long name to enter and rescue his mother. When the doors were opened however, all the hungry ghosts escaped to the realm of the humans to satisfy their hunger for whatever they were hungry for. In the meantime, the dude with the really long name searches for his mother, and by the end of the month he managed to get her out of the place with a lot of hungry ghosts. All the ghosts were returned back into this realm, and a month every year is then set aside to commemorate the bravery of the dude with the really long name.
Humans are terrified of hungry ghosts, because these hungry ghosts are out of their minds. They would eat anything in their paths, even if it is the luck of us poor humans. Basically, in Chinese mythology, the humans are always afraid of Gods and ghosts, and some demons from the underworld. And thus, they are always doing silly and strange things, thinking that it will wear off evil spirits. With the gates of hell opened wide the whole of this month, all the ghosts are free to run about everywhere. It's like a public holiday or vacation for the demons of the underworld who takes care of these hungry ghosts. For a month in the year, they get to relax and slack as well, without the need to torture these poor souls. They get to sit back and have a cup of burning hot lava (I don't know why I typed lava, I just had that image) while the ghosts head on out to terrorize the human world. In defense, the humans came up with their own sets of defenses.
Come on, Come on
Holy Roman empire
Armed with enough paper money to reclaim a land big enough for a small island, the amount of those collectively around the world used by superstitious Chinese would be able to reclaim a land in the middle of the Pacific and add one more continent to the Geography textbooks. Also, scared humans in the human world would hold concerts in the neighborhood, with performers skimpily clad in flashy costumes, singing dialect songs to the public as well as our 'good friends', who really are the ghosts that escaped from the underworld. The first row of these gigs would be reserved for these invisible friends, and it is a common misconception that these friends enjoy horrendous techno remix of Cantonese and Hokkien songs. I'm sure there are friends out there who prefer rock songs, or even hip-hop - who knows. I mean, I'd like them to play Indie music if I end up in the ranks of the hungry ghosts one day - knock on wood.
Even on a small island such as Singapore, it is not difficult to see practices of such superstition happening all around. You see piles of ashes on pavements and drain covers, and there was a story in my grade school that a student stepped on one of those blackened drain covers and fell into the underworld, never to be seen or remembered by anybody from the human world ever again. I challenged the story, arguing that if the student really fell into the hole and was forgotten by the people in our world, then where did the story come from? The kids back then shrugged their shoulders, and told me that you can never be too careful, that it was better to be safe than sorry. Despite having a superstitious mother, all the traditional practices never came across to me as being logical or rational. I'm a man of science, and I am sure the subject was taught to us since grade school for a reason.
Come on if you think
Come on if you think
You can take us on
You can take us on
The August-September period is a bad time to take strolls on pavements at night. Not because some ghost would jump out from nowhere and grab your ankles like the way they show it in Japanese horror movies. There are people who still believe that by stepping on piles of ashes would bring along a few decades of bad luck, and would try to avoid them as much as possible. The problem arises when these piles of ashes are EVERYWHERE along the pavements of EVERY street in this period of time, and it is almost impossible to avoid them wherever you go. Taking a stroll back home from Corinna's today, we encountered so many piles of those ashes that we'd rather walk on the road and risk our lives against the oncoming traffic. She was terrified of those ashes, and even apologized to a good friend when she accidentally stepped on one. For me, I avoided them because they make my shoes dirty, which is a fact.
The road that led to my place from hers was lined with rows of red candles that burnt softly in the night breeze. It was beautiful from across the road, but it became a little creepy when I was walking down the concrete pavement myself, thinking how nice it would be if they were replaced by Christmas lights instead of eerie red candles burning in the night. It looked like the lights on an airport runway, leading planes down to safety from up above. Only, they were probably leading some other things to land on earth safely, and probably not from the sky either - but underground. Even for a person like me, it was a rather creepy thought to have while walking down the road alone at night. That is especially so after Corinna and I were met with creepy old people in the private housing estate over at Serangoon Gardens. One of them ran out of his house in nothing but his red shorts, and stared at us from over the metal gates with dead eyes. Another old woman sat on a stool in the middle of the driveway, and watched us go by quietly with her silent menace. Creepy people roamed the streets tonight, and I figured that it was better to get home as soon as possible.
You and whose army
You and your cronies
There is something about Chinese superstition which I don't get. They almost always have dumber looking ghosts as compared to Western superstition. In the Western culture, they have vampires that goes around at night, sucking the blood of innocent victims. The Chinese have our very own vampires as well, but they are usually a combination of a vampire and a zombie, and they aren't usually very smart or cool to begin with. In the Chinese culture, the vampires are called Jian Shi, which literally means "Stiff Corpses", because they are really stiff in nature. They are almost always dressed in ugly ancient Chinese wardrobe, with a strange looking hat and a peakcock's feather sticking out of nowhere, and they hop around most of the time. They can't fly like their Western counterparts, nor do they look as cool. The way to kill a Western vampire would be to drive a wooden pole through his heart, throw a cross onto him, spray him with holy water, dump a hell lot of garlic on him or to just hold him long enough until daylight comes. The Chinese vampire will be controlled with a yellow piece of paper with gibberish written on it, stuck to its forehead. It is that easy, really. You can even write it on Post-its.
The above paragraph was typed to calm down the people out there - like my sister - who are freaked out about this time of the month. There are a dozen rules in this period of time, a bunch of things that you cannot do. For example, pick up money from the ground, take elevators alone at night, or kill insects when you see them. Though they all have stories behind them, I find them incredibly impractical. So, in this time of the month we should all walk the staircases even if you live on the twentieth floor? What if you work overtime in an office and you have to get home afterwards? Are you going to walk down fifty floors just to get to the car park? And I don't suppose anybody would be stupid enough to leave a bag of thousand dollar bills lying around by the side of the road, or allow cockroaches to roam your kitchen if you do see one in this month.
You forget so easy
We ride tonight
We ride tonight
Ghost horses
Ghost horses
Seriously, if you see those damn cockroaches, kill them. If you see ants crawling all over your dinner, slaughter them. If you see mosquitoes buzzing around your ears at night, spray them. Whatever it is, I don't think such things should stop in this period of time just because a few thousand years ago, some dude with a really long name decided to save his mother from the underworld. I mean, it is a courageous thing and we should see that as being admirable. But our lives have to go on, and I am sure you would've done the same - dude with a really long name - if you saw roaches crawling all over your food as well. Just as long as you do not go onto the streets and mock the spirits, I don't see why there should be things that cannot be said or things that cannot be done. Spirits were human too, and I don't suppose they become irrational or unreasonable people once they are dead. That is as bad a misconception as the one with the bad techno music.
We ride tonight
We ride tonight
Ghost horses
Ghost horses
Ghost horses
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, August 14, 2007 at 5:51 PM.
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