This is a translated article from Koosang Koosom Magazine, written by the kid of Golden Bath in Thai Language, translated by Nye.

I’m from Angthong (Thailand), the majority of the locals are farmers and living conditions were according to the farming crops for the year. As for those that are well off, they are mostly store or business owners and no doubt most of them are Chinese, and the person that I’m referring to here was a rich old man who was 100% Chinese named Woe and the locals called him old man Woe. He was one of those that came to Thailand with nothing and started out by buying vegetable crops from local farmers, and take it by boat to sell at the market. Not long after that he opened a roadside stand, then he expanded and opened a store, you can say it’s comparable to today’s supermarket.

Old man Woe loved to play checkers, he could sit and play with his buddies all day long, let’s just say that if lightning doesn’t strike the checkerboard, he won’t stop playing. He breathe in, breathe out checkers game, and most locals knew this.  If they went to buy stuff from his store and engaged him in a conversation of checkers, they sure would get a good deal, he would even give them discounts or freebies.

His wife, old lady Tor was a great cook. Old man Woe didn’t let her help out at the store, he wanted her to stay home and cook for him. Then one day, old lady Tor wanted to make a Lotus root soup for dinner, so she asked the store helper to go get the lotus roots by the river, but old man Woe volunteered to go get for her.

Truth was that he didn’t really want to go get the lotus roots, but was thinking about the checkers game in front of Loung Cheer’s house, the undertaker. Old lady Tor knew this, but didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to upset him.

Late that evening, it was nearly dusk, old man Woe came back, and went straight to get 1 set of the checker pieces. Old lady Tor and the kids were puzzled and didn’t know where he was going, so old lady Tor asked, “Where are you taking that to?” He looked down whilst walking and replied, “I’m taking it to play over there.” And he walked out the front door.

Old lady Tor thought it was rather strange because he never played this late before. She waited for awhile and decided to go look for him. But before she could get on her bicycle, his checkers buddy, Tar Juk came by, parked his motorcycle in front of the store and came straight in with a startled look on his face.

“Sister Tor, sister Tor!” said Tar Juk.
“What is the matter with you, you looked startled.” said old lady Tor.
“Old man Woe is dead!!” said Tar Juk.
“You talked nonsense, I’m about to go look for him.” said old lady Tor.
“Go look for him in heaven then, if you don’t believe me, go see for yourself. His body is by the bridge near the Wat (temple). My nephew Jaeh said that he saw old man Woe collecting the lotus roots earlier, he must have leg cramps or something, and drown in the afternoon, but someone saw his body just now.

Old lady Tor went to see for herself, and when she saw his body, she fainted.

Several days after his funeral, when nightfall, old lady Tor and the kids would hear someone pacing back and forth in front of the store, then she would hear him sitting down at a table in front and followed by loud movements of checkers game. Pok, Pok, Pok … the sounds were slowly but steady, followed by dry coughs that sounded like it came from a heavy smoker. No need to tell who it was, no doubt that it was old man Woe.

It was like this for over a week, she gave Alms, then Sungka Tarn but nothing seemed to work, then she seek the help from ‘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).

Kone Soung Jao said, “old man Woe can’t play checkers over there because he doesn’t have a checkerboard.” After she heard this, she burned 2 checkerboards for him and have not heard from him since.