WriterJournal

The Seventh Month of the Lunar Calendar

July 26, 2006 on 8:04 pm | In In Progress, Ghost Stories | Comments Off

I started this story by writing a para-a-day on each day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar in 2006. Obviously, the project was abandoned due to more ‘important’ projects and actually pure laziness and lack of discipline on my part.
Some notes - Seventh Month of the Lunar Calender is also termed as the Ghost Month in the Chinese-dominant parts of Asia. It is the time whereby the gates of hell are opened for the dead to wander freely on earth…During this period of time, many Chinese will burn paper offerings to the dead, with the belief that the latter will receive these offerings and be appeased.
In Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong, where the Ghost Festival is most celebrated, there are Chinese Opera/ Singing outdoor-events with a lot of food and whole ton of paper offerings being burnt.

As and when I get a stray thought about ghosts, or as the character of Xiwen takes form in my head, I will add another para or so. This is written in a typical Singapore short story style.

Ah Beng squatted by the drain next to his father. The warm evening sun was hidden behind the block of high storey flats. Nevertheless, Ah Beng felt beads of sweat on his forehead and the back of his t-shirt was already sticking to his body. The drain was dry but stinking and he could see the roaches and ants crawling about. “Today is the first day of the seventh month,” Ah Beng’s father said, “We need to burn all these for them today. Quick, help me with the candles.”

Grudgingly, Ah Beng took two red candles from the bulging red plastic bag and stabbed it through the yellow grass into the cracked earth. For a moment, Ah Beng thought of using his new Zippo lighter, a gift from Ah Lian, to light the candles but he picked up the box of matches from the red plastic bag instead.

“Ah Beng! Such a good boy to your old father.” It was Auntie Lim from the sixth floor. Ah Beng scrowled. He hated people calling him Ah Beng.

“Yes. My Ah Beng is a good boy,” Ah Beng’s father nodding in approval while laying out the various offerings on the parched grass, “Every year, he will help me with this. You know, his mother died when he was still very young but never once did he cry and ask for her. He understands. He is a good boy.”

Ah Beng stared at the box of matches. This box of matches has been in his family for as long as he could remember. His father had always used the matches from this box to light the candles for big festivals like Qing Ming and the Ghost Month. There used to be a picture of a pretty woman on the box. She was wearing the traditional cheongsam and was holding onto a fan. A faint little smile playing on her lips, oriental eyes, a dash of pink on the cheeks and a very dated hairstyle. Ah Beng remembered that he had found her very pretty and had always wanted to hold the box of matches for his father just so that he could look at her.

Once, many years ago, Ah Beng had asked his father about this woman.

It was also on the first day of the Seventh Month, when Ah Beng’s father told him the story of this beautiful woman. Ah Beng had been waiting for an opportunity to ask his father right from the moment he laid eyes on the box of matches again - the last time Ah Beng had seen it was during Qing Ming, four months back - and he simply could not wait any longer. Secretly hoping that his father would be in a good mood and tell him the story, Ah Beng had performed the ‘duties’ of a filial son by taking the heaviest bag of offerings he could carry and offering to lay out the items in the neat way his father had always done. His efforts were not in vain. After the last of the incense paper turned into a grey pool of ashes, Ah Beng’s father had said, “Come my son, let’s go for a drink at the kopitiam. I will buy you a bottle of Coke. The weather is so warm and you must be tired after the long day in school.”

Her name was Xiwen and she was a singer from Malaysia. She was only sixteen when her songs were heard over the radio and by her seventeenth birthday, she had already toured the whole of Asia. She had even appeared in several programmes on television. Xiwen’s fame brought her an anticipated life of plenty. Coming from a backward village in Malaysia, Xiwen’s family was much poorer than anyone else. She attended no school, learnt no written words and everyday, she would help her mother with the cooking and washing in the big colonial houses far away from the hut Xiwen and her family lived in.

When she was a young girl, she would listen and silently sing along with the maids who worked in the houses. The maids despised Xiwen and her mother because they felt superior in their neat and ironed uniforms while the mother and daughter went about in simple and rather tattered cotton clothes. Also, most of the maids were able to read and write. They had access to the radio too and that was where they learnt all the songs from.

Xiwen would sing silently in her heart because she was not allowed to talk whenever they were around. She was there to help her mother with the cooking and washing, she was not there to talk or to make any noises. Once she sang a little song, which had played in her mind for the entire morning until she could not bear it any longer, in her soft sweet voice and unluckily for her, she was overheard by a maid who was just a few years her senior. Envious of Xiwen’s voice, this maid broke two plates in front of Xiwen and pushed the blame to her.

From that incident on, Xiwen was not allowed to go near the house. She could no longer help her mother with her. Xiwen spent her time at home looking after the even younger children of her neighbours. Alone, Xiwen’s mother worked and worked until one day, she was taken ill.

November Rain

November 12, 2005 on 12:00 am | In November Rain, In Progress | Comments Off

Kampoon Boontawee’s A Child of The Northeast, a story not uncommon to all school going children in Thailand, inspired November Rain - The Story of Nong. I am struggling in writing this story because I am not a native Thai. Having spent the bulk of my years on a small topical island, my knowledge of the world is very limited. Tik has been a great encouragement in giving me the necessary cultural support I require for this project. The work, at present, is still in the very raw stage and while I know there are a few mistakes here and there, I hope the errors are not too major or offensive.

November Rain - The Story of Nong

Nong sat down on the plank of wood jutting out from the jetty and stared at the setting sun. Somchai watched her from a distance and shook his head. At the age of five, Nong had left the village with a (bpae) (Chinese uncle) from Hong Kong who claimed to be her grandfather. Now, twenty years later, Nong came back to the village as a modern young woman who wanted to find herself. She found a village which stood largely unchanged while time had passed and in Somchai, the only son of the family who had adopted Nong when she was an infant, the elder brother who doted on her as he had done so, so many years ago. Somchai saw in Nong, the same little sister who loved to run about in the village. He also remembered that, from the time Nong could walk, she would cry herself to sleep whenever she missed her date with the setting sun. He had often wondered throughout the years, how Nong lived in a foreign city and whether she saw the sun setting everyday.

Somchai walked silently towards Nong as the darkness fell. The sun had set. Just like what she had done half an hour ago, he took small steps to avoid the small rocks threatening to trip the unawares. It was exactly the same way Nong had walked everyday to reach her plank of wood when she was only three years old. She had remembered everything about her early years spent in the village. Why had she not kept in contact with them? And why her sudden return? Somchai had many questions for Nong but as this was her first evening back home, (baan) that was the word she had used, he thought these questions could be left for tomorrow.

Nong stood up. Instead of looking up at the darkening skies as she used to do, she looked down at the river. The rainfall had been heavy in recent months and the river was full and brimming with life instead of the trickle she knew as a child. Somchai stopped as he watched her fell face down into the river. And then he ran. Like he had never run before. To save the sister who had finally returned to the village.

November Rain - Chapter One

The young boy looked at the bundle of clothes lying on his father’s fields. It looked unlike any clothes that he had ever seen before. The material seemed to glow under the relentless sun. He took a frightful step back when the bundle seemed to move and was about to shout for help when his father’s shadow appeared besides him.
“Do you think the rice paddy will grow with your staring?”
“No, Father. There is something on your fields.”
“I saw it. Go and pick it up.”
The young boy shook his head.
His father pushed him forward and he fell down, his face inches from the bundle which was now moving vigorously and he could hear strange noises coming from it. He felt the earth moving under him, the sky falling and a cold darkness surrounded him. Somchai woke up drenched in cold sweat. He was lying on his grandmother’s bed, a piece of thin mattress. He looked around the house and saw no one. Somchai walked to the door and looked out to the fields. He wondered what time it was and estimated that it should be about noon from the position of the sun. Was that a bad dream? But he remembered having a breakfast of sticky rice before he left for the fields. He patted his stomach and it felt full. Where were his parents and grandmother? He deliberated whether to go out and search for his parents or to stay and look after the house. Once, he ran out to play with Komchay, who came with his parents from Kompot and was new in the village, and had left the house untended. When he returned home in the evening, he found his father very angry and his mother crying because two chickens were missing. His father had then given, together with a box on the ear, instructions to him that there should always be someone looking after the house. The village had been too friendly to strangers and some strangers were ungrateful or greedy people who would steal, Somchai’s father had said.

He sat down on the top of the stairs and waited. After what seemed like a very long time to him, Somchai decided to make himself useful by catching the beetles flying into the house. It was the end of a rainy season. His father had said so. It would be many months past, and maybe years before the village could see rain again. Somchai caught a few beetles and instead of pounding them straight away in the [shit, i forgot the name of the thing…] he decided to put them into the glass bottle with a strange plastic cover he had found the other day. He wondered if he could keep and grow beetles like chicks turning into chickens. Bigger beetles might be tastier and more filling. The glass bottle would allow him a view of the beetles growing. As he turned the cover of the glass bottle to prevent the beetles from flying out, he remembered the village หมอลำ (mor lam)(singer) had sang of love, life and air. He had asked his father about air. And his father had told him that everyone, animals and plants needed air to live. Somchai came to a conclusion. The beetles would die very fast if he closed the cover on them. But if he did not do so, they would escape. He decided to hold his hand over the opening of the bottle to prevent the beetles from escaping while he searched for some straws to cover it. A search around the house proved to be futile as he could not find any straws that he could use.

Somchai felt a little hungry. Finally, he decided that he would ground the beetles for lunch instead. He took some chilli and [shit lah…i forgot the name of the herb again!] from his mother’s jars. Somchai poured the beetles out into the [i’ve yet to go find out the name of that thing] and pounded them. Next, he added in the chilli and the [shit lah…i forgot the name of the herb] into the [i’ve yet to go find out the name of that thing]. As the aroma of the beetle larb [i think larb is for meat…what’s the one for insects??] rose up, Somchai felt even hungrier. He hurriedly scooped out the beetle larb [we stick to this for now, okay?] but was very careful about not wasting any drop of it as his mother had reminded him many times. There was enough beetle larb for not only his lunch but also for everyone in the family. Somchai felt very proud of himself. He had made up for not working in the fields this morning. His parents would be happy to find beetle larb for dinner later. His stomach growled and Somchai took some sticky rice from the rice box his mother had prepared earlier in the morning. He took three fistful of rice as he felt extremely useful for making beetle larb and wanted to reward himself and his hungry stomach. Rice was very precious. But the most precious thing was water. Without water, there would be no rice. Somchai’s father had taught him that. But now, with the coming of the dry season, both water and rice were equally precious. They needed to keep more rice in the jars in case the skies refused to rain and there would be no harvest the next year.

All too soon, Somchai had finished his lunch of sticky rice and beetle larb. He put away the rest of the beetle larb into a small jar and realised that there was enough beetle larb to last the family for two meals. Somchai thought that maybe if he could catch more beetles, he could make more beetle larb and sell it to his neighbours. But what do the neighbours have to pay for it? And beetle larb is not as tasty as lizard larb. While he thought about what he could do for his family, Somchai’s hands were not idle. He was only seven years old but he had learnt how to mend the fishing nets many years ago. The rainy season had been good. His father and uncles and the neighbours in the village had caught many fishes. They had delicious meals of fresh fish, fish roasted over fire, fish larb for the past few weeks. [i think i am going off the wrong track…forgive me if i’ve made mistakes…need to check my facts!] And tonight, his father and uncles would go out to the river for the last time to catch more fishes. The rains had stopped for a few days and the water in the river was going down already. They hoped to be able to catch more fishes before the fishes in the river swam away and the river dried up under the hot sun. Somchai’s mother and the other women in the village had dried and kept the fishes with some spices into jars which they planned to keep for the months before the next rainy season. The heavens was fair, his father had said. If it continued to rain, they would have more fishes but as they could not keep the fishes, they could not dry it too if the sun did not come out. But sometimes, heavens was slow to switch between the rainy and dry seasons. In times like those, their rice paddies could not grow properly and there would be no harvest for the year. Everything needed a balance.

Somchai felt sleepy. The heat from the sun was felt even more inside the house than outside. Working in the fields would be cooler than staying inside the house. Somchai dismissed an impulse to run out of the house to find his parents. At times like this, he wished that his family were as rich as Jek Chao (the Chinese man who operated the only convenience store in the village) because Jek Chao had a generator that could produce electricity and a machine that used the electricity to produce cool wind by spinning its tin blades. He put away the fishing nets. Where were his parents? And his grandmother?

The afternoon passed slowly. Unable to bear the heat any longer, Somchai had climbed down the stairs to the patches of grass nearby. He had heard the loud, almost musical croaking of many frogs the night before. Maybe he could be lucky enough to find some frogs to grill for a special treat for himself. Some time passed and Somchai found no frogs. Instead, he had caught a lot of grasshoppers and kept them inside a bamboo tube. When the dry season began, there would be no frogs, no grasshoppers, no fishes.

“Son. What are you doing?”
Somchai had his hand halfway down a hole, trying to catch an elusive fat grasshopper when he heard his father’s loud voice. He jumped up and held out the bamboo tube of grasshoppers to his father.
“Finding snacks for you.”
Without a word, Somchai’s father took the bamboo tube from him and motioned Somchai to follow him back into the house. Somchai was worried and scared. Had he done something wrong? His father looked so stern.
They climbed up the stairs silently.

“Son. Something happened earlier this morning. The bundle of clothes you found had a little baby inside.”
Somchai’s eyes widdened. A little baby! He loved babies.
“We brought the baby to the village chief.” Somchai’s father was silent again.
“And then?” Somchai was impatient to find out more. Would they throw the baby away?
His father held him by his shoulders and squatted down to look at him in his eyes. “You have always wanted a litte sister. The baby will be coming to live with us. And you will have to learn to take care of her. The year and maybe years ahead will be difficult because we do not know when the next rainy season will come again. Even the village chief had not wanted the baby. And no one else knew what to do with her until your mother spoke up. ” He paused and stared at Somchai who was looking eagerly at him.
“People in our village has got many children but we only have you. Your mother said that she would like to take care of that baby as long as she has food for her.”
“I will too! I promise to be a good son and a good brother!” Somchai could no longer contain his excitement.
“Your mother and grandmother will be coming back soon with the baby. They want you to grind some rice first. Are you able to do that?”
Somchai nodded energetically and ran off to the kitchen.

While Somchai busied himself with the preparations, his father looked around the house and found a basket that they could let the baby sleep in. Somchai’s mother would later use a piece of old pasin to line the basket to make it comfortable for the baby.

November Rain - Chapter Two

Somchai stared at the baby who had big bright eyes. The bundle of clothes that had protected the baby were washed and hanged from the beam. Jek Chao’s wife had seen and offered many bahts for the clothes. But Somchai’s father chased her away. The neighbours had followed Somchai’s mother and grandmother home when they brought the baby back. While none of them wanted to take care of her, they were all awed by her fair skin and big eyes. Jek Chao’s wife said that the baby girl looked like their children but the neighbours disagreed. When Jek Chao’s children were still babies, they were not as pretty as the baby girl. The neighbours were full of speculation on the background of the baby. From the pretty clothes that Jek Chao’s wife wanted so much, they guessed that the baby girl must be born of a wealthy family in Bangkok. But where were her parents? The neighbours were puzzled because they had not seen any strangers loitering around the fields that morning. And if she were left in the fields at night, it was not possible for her to have survived till morning with the pi (ghosts) and animals around. Also, they had not heard any motor sounds in the recent two days. People from Bangkok did not walk long distances like they did. They travelled in those expensive foreign motor engines. How did the person who left the baby girl behind come into the village and left it, undetected by any villagers? Earlier, Somchai’s mother had found some foreign money and a small gold piece in the beautiful clothes. She did not tell anyone about it except Somchai’s father. Let the villagers guess! Somchai’s father had said. It was for the better that the lesser they knew. When the pretty clothes were dried, she kept the foreign money and the small gold piece wrapped up with the clothes in one of the many baskets they had in the house.

She looked at him. He was making funny noises to make her laugh. “Nong, booboo…”
“Nong, taaaaaa…”
She laughed. They had decided to name the baby girl, “Nong”.

The year had passed. And Somchai’s father was right. There was not enough rain for a harvest. Many villagers left the village to seek a better life in the bigger cities. To Somchai’s father, a city life was not in anyway better than one in the village. His parents had brought him to the village after they lost their house, and everything, in a fire in the city. In a way, his life was the reverse of many villagers. They went to the city for a better life but he came to the village for a peaceful life. Somchai’s father had not been used to living in the village when he first arrived here. But as the years passed, he grew to love the sounds of nature and he fell in love with a young and pretty village girl who was to be Somchai’s mother. For him, life in the village was peaceful and nothing was found wanting.

Somchai looked out at the dry ground. The earth was beginning to break up into pieces. Nong, sat playing with a doll made from dried leaves and grass - there were so many of such now but not for long. She was smiling and when Somchai looked at her, he felt himself slightly happier.

Two years passed and Nong, at three years old, was a bubbly child who always had a smile for everyone. Even on days when it was very hot and she had to follow Somchai to find whatever food they could, Nong did not cry. She would however shed silent tears whenever she did not get to watch the sunset by the river. When she stood there, by the river, and stared at the setting sun, it seemed like she was waiting, waiting, just waiting for something to happen.

Heaven was not kind to the villagers. The sun shone down and burnt the fields to a light brown. The river had been reduced to just a fine muddy pool which would disappear in a blink of an eye. Many villagers left for the big town. They piled up all their belongings, gave away those that they could not bring along with them to families like Somchai’s who were staying, and went away in search for a better life. Over the years, many of them came back to visit - some were rich and unhappy, others still struggle from meal to meal. But all of them said that the same thing, they were glad not to suffer under the sun.

Somchai’s father refused to move.