Month of the Ghosts in Lunar Calender

The 7th month in the Lunar Calender (used by the Chinese) is commonly known as the Month of the Ghosts. Generally it falls on August of the Solar Calender (used by the rest of the world). It is believed that the God of Hell will grant the ghosts a month's leave, and the Gate of Ghosts' Fort will be opened to release the ghosts. They are free to roam human land for one month, after which they will have to return to their sufferings in Hell again.

The mid of the Ghosts' Month was 2 days ago, believers burn incense,hell money and the like and offered some food by the road side to appease these hungry ghosts.They believe that by doing so the ghosts will leave their family alone and will not bring any harm or misfortune. The youngsters are advised to stay at home at night during this month and let the ghosts to do the roaming instead.

This is also the month of story telling. The stories being told are all ghost stories,of course! I would like to tell you one too. When I was a little boy living in the new village, my younger brother and I went out to play after dinner every night. After all the other kids had gone home, we two still hanged around our favourite coffee shop. We could not afford to buy any drinks or food there, but the owner just ignore us and let us hang around.We read news paper or comic books there, or just listened to the grown ups chatting. Our favourite pass time was to go the back portion of the shop which was converted into a majong room, where there were always 2 or 3 tables of majong sessions going on.We would stand behind the players to watch, some players chased us away, but most of them just ignored us.

One night my brother was bored watching the majong and wanted to go home early, but I was attracted to the session which was going on.That particular game was very interesting, therefore I asked my brother to go home first. So he left. After a short while he returned, his face was very pale and was panting loud. He begged me to go home with him because he was afraid. It was strange, he was never afraid to go home alone before, moreover our house was just down the road only. Anyway, I went home with him.

On the way home, my brother told me that he saw Uncle Kau's ghost. I laughed and said,"Are you sure?" He replied,"Yes, when I reached the front door of our house, I saw someone was squatting in front of Uncle Kau's house. When I look closely, it was Uncle Kau's ghost! So I quickly turned back and ran." I could feel goose pimples all over my whole body immediately.
Uncle Kau's house was directly opposite ours, he died a few days ago. (Refer to my earlier post on bad memories of lightning strikes). When we reached our house, my brother pointed to the spot where Uncle Kau's ghost was squatting before, but it was empty now. I believed my brother's story, do you? People say it is bad luck to see a ghost, maybe that was why I became a computer engineer and my brother, a construction worker.

During my days as a computer engineer I heard many stories about ghosts, but I had never met one, touch wood.

In those days, computers were huge machines, and special rooms were prepared to house them. What better choice is there than converting abandoned room into a computer room? The usual reasons for these rooms to be vacant was simple, there were haunted. Scarey,man!

Unfortunately, I had to spend long hours at night alone in those computer rooms, the computers of the old days were slower than snails. To quote an example, to format a 32MB hard disk would take 8 hours. It was seldom completed successfully at the first try, it may just failed, hang, or stopped due to power interruption. If that happened, it had to be started over again. You could not just press the "START" button and go home, then come back after 8 hours. If any thing happened during those 8 hours, you had to start from zero again, valuable time would be lost. Therefore I had to stay and watch over it, all alone in the haunted room. I did not hear or see any thing all these years. People were amazed why I was not disturbed. I believed every word they said, but I had no choice.

Another example: During one of my out-station assignments, I was told by the receptionist of my favaourite hotel that it was fully booked. I was disappointed, suddenly she said,"Room 3xx is still available, do you want to take it?" I quickly responded,"Yes, of course!" After signing the check-in card, I became calm and could think clearly, I felt some thing missing. So I asked her,"Why did you ask me that question just now?". She was not her usual self and quickly replied," nothing,nothing,nothing, I just ask only!". I pressed on,"Is it because it is haunted?", she said,"how did you know? You still want it now?". I took it, I had no choice. Again nothing happened, I slept peacefully through the whole night.

The closest thing I can say was my encounter with ghosts is the following story:

One of my clients' computer room supervisor was killed in a road accident. She was a very dedicated girl, to the extent that I felt she was becoming high strung over her works. I received a pager message that their line printer was down on the day she met the accident. I rushed back from out-station and to attend the call. It was then that I heard the bad news. Although sad, I still have to solve the problem at hand. I change all the printed circuit boards with good spare ones, checked all cables, connectors, fuses and motors. But the printer still did not work. Then I suspected the character belt might be jammed, so I increased the gap between the belt and the platen, but still won't work. Finally, I stripped the character belt and rollers, but still nothing happened. Out of desperation, I spoke to myself and called the supervisor's name. I pleaded with her to leave the machine alone. Then I switched the printer on to try, the motor started to spin with full force,unbelievable! Later, the IT manager told me that the printer broke down at precisely the time she was killed. This is a true story, maybe it is coincident. Well, maybe.

I have a tip for young repairmen and who are non believers, if you find one of the critical screw or nut missing try this trick. Usually I would talk to the air like mental patients do, then use your sharpest screw driver to poke on the floor and say," who is hiding my things, move away!" It works, at least for me.

The tragic Genting Highland bus accident which killed 37 people 2 days ago also caused many people to connect it with the "Ghost Festival".

If you believe in God, you have to believe that there are ghosts. If you believe there exists ghosts, then you have to believe in God, no matter in what forms or shapes.