Dead Dogs Ghost-Spirit

DEAD DOGS GHOST-SPIRIT My first spiritual experience, in a broad sense, was when I was 4 or 5 years old. It was well before I attended kindergarten in any case, at the age of 5. My twin brother and I were inclined, as were most children those days in the 50s, in a Malaysian village, to just wander around the immediate neighbourhood, just playing truant and delinquent and inquisitive at large. As a couple to ourselves, more often than not, we did not seek other company. We were a full company of 2 intrepid adventurers. If it was hot, we climbed trees or waded through monsoon drains catching guppy-like fish or aquatic worms. If it rained, we splashed in the water puddles or in the case of floods we swam in the tropical over-wash. Every day was a fun-filled day of childhood adventure, from sunrise to dusk, and in between, only returning for replenishment, be it whether, because of thirst or hunger. We, like tropical savages, had no concept of clocked time. We went indoors only when nature or our tummy called. One day, perchance, in our wanderings we came across the corpse of dog. I had never seen a dead dog before. In fact, I doubt whether until then, I had ever seen anything dead bigger than a rat in a metal-cage mousetrap. Even then the rat was not quite dead, because we were told that it had to be taken away to be killed, by having boiling water poured all over it. Not having seen the killing of a rat, it never registered in my conscience then that it was or might be a form of animal cruelty. Anyway, having often been chased by many of the ubiquitous ferocious flearidden, mangy, possibly rabid, pariah [mongrel] dogs in the neighbourhood, this novel sight of a canine corpse was quite a new experience. At a safe distance of about 6 paces, my twin and I circled the corpse like Red Indian scouts and appraised our find. Having been told countless number of times to beware of rabid dogs, we were qui vive. The corpse was of a brown medium sized adult pariah dog, (to give an indication of its size, it was half the size of an Alsatian). Its body was bloated like a balloon and there were dozens of blowflies settling or hovering over it. It looked strange, being still and motionless and also hideously fat, when compared to the live emaciated, mangy, rubbish-foraging pariah dogs we constantly encountered. Is this what death looks like? Why did it die? Do human beings also die? Will my parents die? Will I die? Is there a ghost-spirit of the dead dog? Even at that juvenile stage, having been brought up in a traditional Chinese household, I had heard often enough of ghosts and spirits, but not knowing what they looked like except that they were demonic and scary. It was left to ones own imaginings as to what scary was, embellished from bits and pieces gathered from eavesdropping on whispered adult conversations. In a fuzzy nebulous way, in my mind, death was associated with ghost-spirits. And ghost-spirits were linked to sickness and misfortune. In drips and drabs we overhear from adults coming back from fortune-telling sessions that so-and-so was sick or suffered a misfortune because he or she encountered a ghost-spirit. But were all ghost-spirits bad? They must be if I have never heard of or been informed on any account of a good ghost-spirit. I was filled with fear and trepidation. Was I already too close as to be within the grasp of the dead dogs ghost-spirit? Is it not the case that one is only captured if one walked into the shadow of the dead body? Here I was doing a bit of deductive reasoning. I had overheard once that at funerals mourners must never walk in the shadow of a dead body or coffin. Of course at that point in time, I never really knew what a funeral, dead body or coffin were like, since what you knew or heard about death and related matters came across at an audio distance. At the very sound of funeral gongs and drums and trumpets, and death wails, mother would shoo us into the house like a mother hen protecting her brood. Chinese funerals, by ear, were a cacophony of far reaching, brassy, incorrigibly scary ear-piercing and ear-bashing sounds. Consequently, you just knew

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enough accidentally or incidentally of death and funerals; to be both mystified and outright frightened of these things they were taboo! I had at one stage only momentarily wondered how the mourners managed to bury a dead body, if that was what I heard eventually happened at a funeral; if everyone was afraid to touch it. But growing up in a Chinese culture you do not ask questions about things that adults spoke of only in whispers; when minors are around or within ear-shot distance. Anyway it was around midday and my twin and I were definitely out of the noon-cast shadow of the dead dog. Not wishing to venture nearer but ever so insatiably curious about the nature of the dead dog and its attendant ghost-spirit, I inexplicably decided to throw a stone at it. I picked a stone lying nearby, aimed and threw it at the dead dog. Even at 6 paces I missed it! This frustrated me more and so it triggered off a frantic volley or barrage of stones and other worthwhile missiles from my twin and me. For what appeared to be a relatively long time, for failure and frustration can stretch time elastically long, we felt maladroit and useless. Curiosity had now turned into anger at not being able to reach or hit the target. Get a bigger stone, my twin suggested. As there was none in the immediate vicinity I diverted to the monsoon drain nearby and I located a small rock, half the size of my fist. I went back and this time to assure a better prospect of hitting the target, I moved closer to the dead dog, but still clear of its shadow, and confidently let loose. I thought I heard a muted thud as the latest projectile smacked right through and punctured the bloated underbelly. Or maybe it was just my imagination. The mind subconsciously associates a sound with any explosion (or an implosion in this case). But what spewed out or was uncovered by my wilful dogged effort was unimaginable. The sight immediately sent a shiver down my spine. It simply scared the hell out of me. The dead dogs rotting slimy guts and innards were exposed and there were maggots all over them and around the exposed opening. What have I done? What have I violated? I was petrified. Was this indicative of the presence of the dead dogs ghost-spirit? How did the creepy crawlies get inside the dead dog? What strange power or alien force was responsible for such defilement? In the seconds it took for me to gain my wit and movement I turned and ran and ran, in panic, away from the scene of my hideous crime. I only barely noticed from the corner of my eye that my twin was running behind me in pursuit. Panting and breathless from what was like a neverending mile we finally reached home. Strange, how guilt can make one cover up ones tracks or in this case ones misdemeanour. On reaching home, some intuitive instinct told me to appear totally nonchalant as if totally carefree or careless and in idle platitude remarked to my mother that the somnolent weather was making me hot and lethargic, and that I needed to have an afternoon nap. Then a straight dash to the backroom of the house to sit cuddled up like a foetus beneath the ironing trestle table located therein. If one needed to hide in the middle of the day in a crowded tenement workshop/house this was the ideal place, as no ironing was done in the afternoon. This was also the storeroom, in a sense, as things that had no appropriate or proper place in the house ended up simply strewn or piled up here. I felt safe in here. Who or whatever that was pursuing us for my indiscretion would not be able find us, as we ran so fast it would have no idea where we were. Even if it located our house it would never get pass my mother, and my mother can be very fierce. See how she screamed and shouted at my father whenever they quarrelled. If my mother was too busy to intervene, nevertheless we would still have our ancestors spirits to protect us. The ancestral altar was outside and just adjoining the door to the backroom. Yes, this must be the safest place on Earth. We could just wait till the dead dogs ghost-spirit got tired of looking for us. There we were, sitting motionless, hidden away in relieved silence. And time passed by or rather we were oblivious to the passage of time; not even noticing that dusk had fallen; until the homely cry of Aunty our cook/servant serving notice

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that dinner was ready. Somehow dinner came and went that night without the obligatory complaint or fight between the twins over not having the choicest meats or morsels. Rather untypical of us that night, we did not sit around to listen to adult gossip. We went to bed early, wishing more than anything else to forget the days events. Lying there in bed I told myself that the next morning I would go to the village Chiuchow Chinese grocer; to get myself some salted spicy red ginger and some of my other favourite Chinese confectionery, or perhaps they should be more appropriately described as savouries, like salted plums and liquoriced prunes and olives; and also some dried red watermelon seeds for my mother. I cannot explain why, whenever I felt nervous, lonely or depressed I sought comfort in sweet, salty, sour or spicy, or a complex combination of all these, tastes found in Chinese confectionery and condiments. The sensation of something sweet yet excruciatingly sour or salty or chilli-hot on the taste buds somewhat or somehow numbed my nerves or took my mind away from whatever was bothering me. It was like an opiate. Later in life I graduated to very hot vindaloo and other curries to placate my nerves. The way some others would strike up a cigarette or crave for chocolates. My mother had her out for nerves as well. She would often on Sundays just work her way through a kilogram or two of dried red watermelon seeds. She would deftly crack open the seed-husk with her front teeth and ply or suck out the seed in what appeared to be one swift singular action. To appreciate her dexterity or skill you must know that dried red watermelon seeds get slippery when moistened; and these seeds are a third of the size of dried salted melon or pumpkinseeds, favoured by Middle-Eastern women, succumbed to the same habit or addiction. I was coming back from the village grocery, clutching savoury bags of salted spicy red ginger, salted plums, liquoriced prunes and sweet olives and dried red watermelon seeds with one hand. With the other hand I was steering a rusty bicycle wheel with an off-cut from a broomstick. I quite enjoyed the simple thrill of keeping the bicycle wheel steady in balance and in forward motion, by pushing the stick at an inclination against the groove of the wheel. In my minor world it was something I could do that most children my age could not. Like some Western children would pretend to ride a horse, I was pretending to cycle. In my childhood there were no child bikes. The British-made Raleigh bicycles were one standard adult size and they were huge, solid and bulky even by todays standards. All of a sudden, a vicious brown pariah dog lunged at me out of nowhere yelping and growling. This unbalanced me and I fell to the ground. I barely noticed the jettisoned bicycle wheel swerving uncontrollably and crashing into a nearby ditch. The dog had red, demonic, vengeful looking eyes and was baring its teeth like wolf-fangs, snapping at me from and in all directions. My puny steering stick was no defensive weapon against such voracious onslaught. All of a sudden there was a tropical downpour. The lightning was flashing vehemently and the thunder crashed in crescendo as if all the Gods were angry at the same time. The assailing rain thoroughly drenched the paper savoury bags and me. All my Chinese savouries were washed out. The wind blew and howled with the fury of a typhoon. The dog was also drenched. Like an apparition it began to bloat and then floated and haphazardly blew about like a balloon. Without warning it exploded with a loud bang and a rain of wriggly maggots began to fall all over me. I screamed out with fright. No words really. Just a squeamish bellow - aaaaahhhhhh. I woke up with a jerk and immediately realised it was only a nightmare. It was raining heavily outside with all the lightning and thunder of a typical tropical thunderstorm. And the opened shutters were crashing against the window-frame. I was anaemic with fear. Was the nightmarish dream a portent of things to befall me? I turned to my twin next to me and shook and shove his shoulder and woke him up. I related the nightmare to him. He was not particularly helpful at first. Initially he taunted and teased me along the lines that I was being spooked and that I will suffer misfortune. This is quite a normal

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behaviour in an Asian cultural sense, to laugh or tease someone for his or her little misfortune. They still do so today; like laughing at someone for missing the bus by a few seconds, as it steers away from the bus-kerb, or at someone for stepping over dog-poo. I queried him. Wasnt he the one who suggested that I used a bigger stone? The dead dogs ghost-spirit can hear and see everything cant it? If he thought I was the only culprit he was deluding himself. The nightmare only came to me because a message of warning was being sent through me. The ominous message was equally meant for him; it was meant for both of us. When I finally convinced him that the dead dogs ghost-spirit was after him as well, for he was my accomplice, at least an accomplice after the fact, he became equally concerned. He became very cooperative to my suggestion that we should think of a way to appease the dead dogs ghost-spirit. We were huddled together in hiding, the rest of the morning, in the backroom. We were in war council, but were totally lost for ideas or solutions. We were however agreed that we tell no one of our predicament, just in case it might get us into deeper or further trouble. Did we not constantly overhear the expressions from the adults in their adult talk Keep things to yourself, The less said the better, Stay silent, so that there is no loss of face and Stop advertising to the world, dont you know what shame is! Keep it within your-self Secluded in our clandestine world of conspiracy, no one noticed our absence from breakfast, as it was a weekday. Unless it was a Sunday, breakfast was informal and self-serve and at ones convenience. The standard Hokkien familys breakfast offerings were rice porridge or gruel or congee, as it is otherwise known; and for accompanying condiments we had salted fish, salted eggs, preserved turnips, preserved bean curd, fried peanuts, deep-fried white bait and left-overs from last nights dinner. On Sundays mother would send Aunty to the market to buy Malaysian hawker dishes and delicacies like nasi-lemak, leong-tow-foo, fried kway-teow and dim-sum. And so the whole family had breakfast together on Sundays. We were not hungry for the standard breakfast. It might be different if it were a Sunday special. Mother would have noticed our absence and called for the twins anyway. Sunday is not Sunday without the twins fighting over food for special breakfast! Suddenly I heard Aunty reciting her daily incantation to ancestral spirits at the ancestral altar outside the backroom. Whatever her usual invocations were, they were all gibberish to me, as she was usually mumbling her words through a practically toothless closed mouth. She did not put on her dentures till at least lunchtime. Moreover her Cantonese [Kwangtung Province] dialect was quite different from our Hokkien [Fujian Province] dialect. At the end of the sacrament, she would utter, Bless us! Bless us! in Cantonese; she then inserted the offering of smoking joss sticks into the various joss-bowls. Her closing entreaties on this occasion jolted the inner recesses of my meandering thoughts and rang out like a bell - Bless us! Bless us! I explained to my twin what we had to do and he agreed wholeheartedly. Well, he had no better alternative. We took down our piggy-banks from the top of mothers wardrobe. They were not piggies but rather drum-shaped clay moneyboxes, with a coin slit at the top. I went to my fathers panelbeating/welding workshop, which formed the front part of the building that the house was comprised in, to look for something to break open the piggy banks. Armed with a hammer, we went to the backyard to see how much money we could filch from our savings. We needed more money than the amount mother usually gave us when we asked for spending money to go to the Chiuchow village grocer. That was why we were filching our piggy banks. We were not conscientious savers by any means. In fact we had a zero propensity to save. Why save when you can simply go and ask our mother for money when you wanted money to buy savouries at the village grocer or hawker-food from the itinerant food pedlars that came by the workshop at various times of the day. They came every day except Sundays; Monday to Saturday being the working days. What went into the piggy banks were monies that mothers visiting relatives gave us in mothers presence and which mother would ask us to insert into the piggy banks under her

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and her visiting relatives affectionate watchful gaze. All these were done to the tune of her relatives propitious well wishes that we, the twins, bring prosperity, good health and honour to our mother. Being the only twins in my mothers clan we had become objects of endearment. That day, in the backyard, we discovered that we had lots of money by normal reckoning, that is, in terms of what we usually went shopping with for the day or the occasion. Strange, I thought to myself, how money grows in quantum when you put them away. What use is it in the piggy bank? Maybe we should give the money back to our mother. She should know what to do with them. She always had money in her bounded silk pouch that she hid inside her sumfoo blouse. But then she would know we broke the piggy banks. At the village grocer, we bought my favourite savouries and dried red watermelon seeds for our mother. At my twins behest we also bought other types of savouries and candies as well, like pickled mangoes, pickled shallot-bulbs, preserved nutmeg, dried coconut strips and various types of preserved ginger, apricot, peach, mandarin, kumquat, in their complex sweet, sour and salty variants. He thought, (as a matter of conjecture), that the dead dogs ghost-spirit might have different tastes from us, and might prefer a wider variety of confectionery unlike us. He also thought that it would be prudent to offer more rather than less to better secure redemption. For someone who later became a banker and businessman, one can see here the early gleanings of business acumen and a mercantile mind. From Auntys kitchen we pilfered a couple of bananas, one orange, one apple, some cracker biscuits from the larder. The larder was in fact a tall wooden cupboard with flyscreen doors and sides, the legs standing in clay cups of water. The flyscreen was for ventilation, a requisite in the tropics, and to keep away the ever-present houseflies; and the base-cups of water were to deter the equally prolific sugar ants. From the ancestral altar we took a box of matches, 2 Chinese red altar candles, (just imagine it as a red candle with a thick kebab stick right through it), and an unopened package of 100 incensed joss sticks. Like a couple of thieves in the night with their loot we sneaked inconspicuously out of the house back to the scene of yesterdays sacrilege of the dead dogs ghost-spirit. The canine corpse was still there, except that there were much more blowflies and maggots. And there was a distinctive stench of decay. The smell you find at and around the open rubbish dumps littering the backroads in the neighbourhood. There we were, two supplicants, seeking repentance for their wrongdoing. This time we kept a further distance from the corpse than we did at the first encounter. Concatenated in contrition, we were feeling compunctious instead of inquisitive the second time around. We laid out the bounty of redemption that we had brought for the penitential ceremony. In our haste we did not think of bringing any mat or old newspapers as a groundcover to place the offerings on. In the event, we simply assembled the various savoury bags and the paper bag containing the kitchen items in rows of fours, merely exposing the bags enough so that celestial eyes could see the contents. Then we built a sand mound at the back of the assembly as an improvised joss stick stand. I signalled to my twin to light the Chinese red altar candles. It took him some time to find a match that was not damp. Eventually he managed to set them alight and gave them to me. I inserted them at the sides of the sand mound like 2 sentries. I then lit the joss sticks using the candle flame. The voluminous dense smoke from a hundred joss sticks burning was making my eyes squint and teary. I blew out the flame, leaving smoking incense. Through the smokescreen I offered half of the joss sticks to my twin. Together in unison we held up the joss sticks in the direction of the canine corpse, switching our gaze from the corpse to the blue skies above; and in our limited sacramental vocabulary beseeched loudly and remorsely We know our wrong! Bless us! Bless us! We know our wrong! Bless us! Bless us! and then went down on our knees and bowed in deep obeisance to the dead dogs ghost-spirit. We repeated this procedure 3 times

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and then stuck the joss sticks in the centre of the sand mound. Glad that we have appeased the dead dogs ghost-spirit we started collecting the edibles to take home. The Chinese are very practical people. The Gods have first bite and have an imaginary spiritual feast and then the humans take the physical leftovers back for an Earthly feast. Out of the blue, a gigantic rotund orange-turbaned Sikh Indian Jaga, [Jaga means night watchman or security guard in the Malay language (the common lingua franca among the different races in Malaysia)], came rushing at us shouting in the Malay Gilakah? Sembayang Anjing Mati! Lu Orang, gila-kah! [Are you mad? Are you mad! You pray to a dead dog? Are you mad?]. And he was swinging a security truncheon as if to hit us. We were not in a position to argue with these fierce bayis as they were colloquially known to us. They were not only fierce, but we had heard that they also like to attack young boys. Our mother never explained why and in what manner they attack young boys but at that tender age I had no understanding of paedophilia or how young boys could be molested. The funny thing was that in that one split second; we both found out that we were more scared of the bayi then the dead dogs ghost-spirit. We ran home faster than we did the day before, when we were being chased by the dead dogs ghost-spirit! Postscript Many years later, as a young teenager, there was an incident in the Cycle & Carriage Industrial Compound that we lived in. Years had passed and there was now a nephew of the Sikh Indian Jaga mentioned above living in the premises. There was a Chinese peripatetic caf hawker called Ah Cheong who sold hot beverages and toasts to the workers in the industrial complex. Ah Cheong had a younger mentally retarded brother called Ah Seng. Apparently the Jagas nephew buggerised Ah Seng. This would have been a criminal offence, but for the fact that Ah Seng was not technically raped. He was said to have been willing. Hence after, whenever Ah Seng was asked Song boh song? [Did you enjoy it?]; he would reply Chin chia song! [Yes! Very enjoyable!]. Such a sad fact of the vagaries of life! As to the strange world of complex sweet, sour and salty Chinese confectionery, I presumed that it was very much a Chinese or Far East Asian taste. I know that the addiction has persisted with the present generations in the Far East; for example, in Hong Kong and Taiwan. There is a chain of stores, selling just Chinese confectionery, called Aji Ichiban in Hong Kong and Taiwan; although in the modern context, these stores have a Western supermarket look. The confectionery comes in modern vacuum packed aluminium foil packaging, with beautiful pictures of the related produce. To my astonishment, on a trip to Hawaii, I came across a shop called Dragon Seed selling Chinese confectionery; just like those that I have described in my memoir herein. What was more surprising was that the shop was still selling the Chinese confectionery in oversized candy glass jars, just like the Chiuchow Chinese grocer did in my childhood! What a pleasant flashback in my memory! I felt like walking over to the Chinese man at the counter to tell him that he must preserve the store layout as it is. Unfortunately, he was American and could not speak a word of Chinese, so I left the store, delighted and yet disappointed, in not being able to have a kinship conversation in Chinese. If only he could speak Hakka or Hokkien or Cantonese; he would have made my trip to Hawaii, really a memorable trip to childhood paradise. Vince Cheok

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JAGA (Ode to the Sikh Security Guard) I confess I must have forgotten you, for you never came to mind, for far too long to remember. But then Shiva Naipaul came along, and told me of his Unfinished Journey. His account of the sectarian carnage, between the Sikhs and the Hindus, prompted your emergence from somewhere, deep-seated in my past consciousness. You then manifested yourself, in this incredulous impression of childhood security. Of a presence that somehow kept, murderers, thieves, ghosts and spirits away. Now I remember you well and truly, your fierce demeanour, quixotic turban and Trojan beard, your unleavened chapattis and bland, unappetising lentil curries. I can still picture your woven jute charpoy bed, all that crocheted webbing patiently self-spun, over a simple rectangular wooden frame, with bed-legs, solid and sturdy as your Pathan fortitude. The way you rinsed your endless maiden hair, never ever cut, in a vat full of sour milk, bemuses and enthrals me when I think of it. Is that how you got rid of your dandruff? Did your hair smell and stink, I wonder, under your cheap Bengali cotton turban, in the hot, torrid Malaysian afternoons. Did you ever sleep during your night watch, I wonder. Did you ever indulge in innate human passion plays? In cheap seamy Tamil brothels, perhaps? Did you miss your dear ones, I wonder, thousands of miles away in your native Punjab.

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The sheer inner strength of your soul, to bear such a mundane and worthless existence. Is that why you are a Singh, a lion? I hope and pray that I have your strength, and your resilience in this karma of my life. Such is the dubious relativity of class and wealth eh! bayi, my brother. Are not my empty dreams and complacent drudgery, akin to your empty KLIM and LACTOGEN cans, that you used to store your practical belongings. Bayi, my brother, you were a pauper, yet you were a king. Off your few ringgits, your far-off family led a comfortable life. Were they aware of your meagre and pitiful subsistence? I wonder, when you died, did they learn, of the truth of your unbegrudging dutiful penitence. Did they ever learn of your death, I wonder. But somehow in another place and another time, I remembered, and I remember you well, bayi, my brother. A stranger to you as a child I was, but I am not now. Rest assured I know you well, there is bonhomie between you and me. Rest in peace, Guru Nanak be with you, bayi my brother, for there is someone who holds you in deep reverence. Vince Cheok

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