Continued from The Promised of a Different Dimension Part II

This is based on a real life story in Koosang Koosom Magazine, by Joe Vatcharapon, written in Thai Language, translated by Ginger.

Chung Li Night Market by Fu-Hsiang

After the ceremony, we went shopping at Chung-Li market, and when we got back to the factory there was a flea market at Zhongliangpo, so my friend and I walked there, just the two of us, besides the road appeared not safe, and it was going on to 8 PM at the time, on the way there we saw an old black motorcycle parked along side of the road, but we didn’t see the owner. We saw it parked there for a while, from a distance, and when we got closer, all of a sudden it just fell sideways for no apparent reason, making lots of noise. It couldn’t have been that it was the wind, or someone was pushing it because there was no one around, and it was not windy. I think it must have scared us, or else we didn’t want to go to the flea market anymore, we looked at each other and decided to head back to the factory.

When we got to the factory, there were several of our co-workers that sat near my bed drinking. I wasn’t sure what I was thinking at the time, but I joined them, and that night I was drunk, most later on went to bed, except for Nom and I still sitting there drinking. I didn’t want to bother my other co-workers, but didn’t want to call it the night either, so I went up to the storage room, and asked Nom to joint me drinking and playing guitar. It was dark in there, so I lit a candle and sat it on top of one of the plastic bins.

Desire by Frogboy

I fell asleep whilst playing the guitar, and I’m not sure how long time has lapsed, but Nom went back downstairs to sleep. At the time, I thought I was sober when I woke up, I felt as if I didn’t open my eyes because I couldn’t see anything, I was confused, disoriented, and didn’t know where I was at the time. I tried to stay focus, and turned on the lights (normally there were 2 fluorescent lights), and even with both on, I could only see blurry, but what I saw was my blanket caught on fire. I yanked the blanket away, and tossed it to the side. I tried to stay focus and used my hands to help find my way, and finally reached the door. The door wasn’t locked, but it would not open, I slammed my body and forced it to open, then it finally did.

As soon as the door opens, the smoke rushed out and into the big room, so I could see that the room was on fire, and it spread rapidly. I rushed downstairs to get the water and tried to put out the fire, I had no help but finally had things under control. The bed that I was sleeping was burned completely, including the wooden plank on top of it, the blanket, and pillow were all gone.

Just think about this, imagine if I didn’t wake up, what would happen to me? It was strange that I woke up, just to think about this, I was so drunk and fell asleep, but woke up several hours later by myself because normally if I was this drunk, I would wake up real late the next morning with a hangover, even if someone were to try to wake me up, they would have a hard time, but this I woke up all by myself, and still amazed to this day as to how I survive the fire, and what if I woke up a couple minutes later, what would happen to me then.

I thought back to my dream that she told me that she would come to pick me up on the 21st, and the day that I went to pay homage to Jao Mae Guan Im was on the 21st.

It was such a coincidence!

When this happened, I thought I would be fired for sure and deported back to Thailand because I was the cause of the fire, but I was wrong. Instead, the owner brought in ‘Kone Soung Jao’ (a host body for ghost spirit, the ancient ritual where the ghost spirit would take over the body of ‘Kone Soung’ then s/he becomes the powerful that can communicate with the ghost spirits), who was in her early 40s to perform some sort of ceremony in front of the huge room. She appears to dress normal, nothing like the Chinese ghost movie, and lead us to perform a ceremony of paying homage, burning Kra dard gong tak or hell bank note, and other rituals that we had to follow which I can’t remember most of them.

I found out later that all these strange incidents happened on the seventh month, and the Chinese believe that it was because Yue Laan, “The Hungry Ghosts Festival. During the entire lunar month, the Chinese believe the gates of Hell are opened, freeing hungry ghosts that wander the earth in search of food. Some also believe that ghosts will seek revenge on those who have wronged them in life. In remembrance of the dead, families burn joss sticks and offer food to appease them, in order to prevent bad luck. Other tribute offerings are made in the form of burning colorful paper objects, such as houses, cars, television sets, and even mobile phones, in the belief that these items will help the ghosts live comfortably in the afterworld. This includes the ever-popular Hell money — fake paper money that is burned so the ghosts will have more spending cash.”

Bottom line, the Chinese believe the the gates of Hell are opened for 1 month, therefore during this time after dusk, the Chinese usually stay inside, and it’s an ancient tradition, but since we were newcomers, we didn’t know. [Note from Ginger: This made me to think of Boun Haw Khao Padap Din (Lao) and Nora Rong Khru Chao Ban Ritual (Thais) that I wrote.  As I have mentioned earlier that this was an old factory and was bought by the new owner, and I also found out later that someone died at this place. She was a Chinese girl in her late teen; she was pregnant at the time, and had problem with her boyfriend. She died at this factory, which was now a huge room that was converted to a sleeping place for the Thai workers.

Picture of Joe Vatcharapon.