Seeing Ghosts (见鬼)

It is an unwritten folk law amongst the Chinese that when a person has seen a ghost, it is best just to keep quiet and ignore its presence; then this ghost will leave him/her alone. Otherwise he/she shall always be bugged by this spirit for a very long time. So said, not all the ghosts like to bug people; but we will never know.

Aunty Fiona and her 7-year-old daughter Felicia can see ghosts with their naked eyes. According to Aunty Fiona, there is a little kid spirit that liked to come to their house in JB to play. Because Aunty Fiona is a Buddhist and she has a compassionate heart, she let the spirit to roam about and she has no intention to harm this little spirit. However, having said so; the kid spirit was fond of scaring Felicia the living daylight out of her.

This kid ghost would suddenly appear in front of Felicia and showed its ugly appearance, or it would suddenly give Felicia’s pony tail a strong tug thus causing the little girl to fall and cry. Strange as it might be, this little ghost dared not disturb Aunty Fiona for some reasons. At first Aunty Fiona thought the little ghost would behave itself until one night when little Felicia’s grandpa came for a visit.

Felicia was afraid of being disturbed by this mischievous little ghost, so she adamantly wanted to sleep with her grandpa. Her grandpa agreed and Felicia slept on the side of the bed facing the wall while her grandpa slept on the outer side. He hoped that his little granddaughter would have a good sleep and not disturbed by this naughty spirit. Everything went well until half past midnight, Felicia suddenly opened her eyes feeling someone was staring her.

Felicia was sleeping with her face facing the wall. As soon as she opened her eyes, there she saw the half decayed face of the little ghost appeared in front of her. Due to fright, Felicia burst in tears and cried at the top of her lungs. Everyone in the house was awakened by this outburst of cries, and the neighbours too. While her grandpa was consoling Felicia, Aunty Fiona quickly went to the kitchen and grab a handful of raw rice grains. When she returned to the bedroom, the mischievous kid spirit was standing near the room door.

Aunty Fiona quickly threw the rice grains towards the bedroom door and suddenly there was a disembodied cry heard in the air, and a white cloth hung near the door was tainted with bluish substance. She thought that the little ghost might be hurt and the blue substance could be its blood.

Since Aunty Fiona has not seen the little ghost for a few days now, she came to me for advice. And I suggested to help her catching the little spirit and tugged it into a small bottle, or I could pulverize it with my sky-iron phurpa; or I could also summon a demon to devour the little kid ghost… But Aunty Fiona rejected all my proposals. Since the kid spirit has not returned, I assured Aunty Fiona that it may have escaped to elsewhere. If it does return to create trouble again, she knows where to look for me.

Interestingly speaking, once I wielded my sky-iron phurpa and struck it towards the ground during my phurpa dance; I noticed a pool of deep blue substances on the floor similar to what Aunty Fiona described. Perhaps some spirit was hurt by my sky-iron phurpa and shed some blood on the floor… Maybe it is true that ghost’s blood is indeed blue in colour.