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The Chinese Ghost Festival

Tick tock, tick tock. This is a clock. It was the night of the last day of 6th month of the Chinese calender, and it was 11:59p.m. Tick tock, tick tock. It had reached 12:00 mid-night. The date had changed and it was the 1st day of the 7th month, which was also the first day the Chinese Ghost month.

  Yesterday was the first day of the ghost month. According to the Chinese legend, the gates of hell would be open on this very day for a month. Every spook is allowed to leave place where they had been tortured for the various crimes they had committed when they were still alive.

  During this month, we're all advised by the elders to be more careful when we're outside. We should avoid picking up or stepping on things like prayer stuffs or beautiful hair accessories or jewelries and so on. They believed that spooks, or maybe some kind of ghosts, would take refuge in these things. And if you really do so, you may make them upset and they may follow you home, scare you in your nightmares, interrupt your mind network......and may cause you death.

  Many places in Malaysia are famous for their tourists' ghostly encounters. For example, we have a castle in Perak where one of the most famous haunted buildings exists in Malaysia. During this month, many Chinese seekers in Malaysia may try to seek some encounters with ghosts there.


  They started to build the castle decades ago. The owner, William Kellie Smith, who named it after his own middle name. Henceforth, it is known as Kellie's Castle. The castle's construction was stopped when the contractor got the bad news that William was killed during his business trip overseas. Many people said they saw William walking through the corridor of the second floor where the master bedroom was supposed to be. Okay, let's get back to subject matter of this story. We should be talking about Chinese ghosts, not any western ones.

  In this month, we can see a lot of prayer stuffs such as fruits, joss sticks, candles and small-seized flags by the roadside. Here's an advice from me: Do not touch any of them. Don't kick or step on them. Just leave them alone.



  I don't force you to believe what I say, it's all up to you. But there's still something you have to know: Ghosts do exist if you don't, really. I do believe in ghosts and I'm pretty afraid of them. I got a kind of feeling when I'm in an empty room or dark places. I felt like there were someone else with me even though I was alone there.


By,
Euan Thum.

 
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