Thursday, October 12, 2006

Of Trees, Flowers and Ghosts

It was one chilly morning but it wasn't the mist that made it so but more because of the haze that was preventing sunshine from coming through.



Trees have always fascinated me. Could it be the colour green or the protection we conveniently glean or could it be in a previous life I was a tree.

It was on this hazy morning that I took some tree pictures and while doing so spotted two monkeys frolicking noisily among the trees but they were too quick for my aim.





I took a picture of this flower. Bougainvillea it is. Do not know how many colours there are but I have seen them in this bright purple, in their reddish purple as well as in pretty orange. I love this plant for the flowers that last for months. Would they look pretty in a vase, I have often wondered. But no, would prefer them sitting prettily on the plant in all its beauty.



Did you know that some Chinese believe the bougainvillea is a ghost in the form of this flower? A friend told me that her mom related a story that tells of a lady ghost who turned into this flower. Of course, not everyone believes this tale or is even aware of this tale.

Speaking of ghosts, do you believe in their existence? Pictures do not lie, we are told. A friend two months ago took a picture of his friend sitting on the steps of a staircase in a downtown shopping complex and beside him sat ...you guessed it... another figure who was not physically there. The picture is still in his camera today.

Another incident - someone walking to buy lunch encountered a road full of those beings which his friend did not see at all. That was in the seventh month of the Lunar Calendar. To our foreign non-Chinese friends, the seventh month is the month where the gates of the underworld are left open and spirits are free to roam the earth.

Yet another seventh month incident - An uncle's classmate went to market one morning with his grandma who was obviously agitated by the crowd, complaining as to why there were so many people that morning at the same time she walking in a zig-zag fashion as though trying to avoid bumping into others. Uncle's classmate then realised that his grandma must have be seeing them around.

What about this one, a lady I know has a sister who sees spirits as second nature. She once saw one removing her head to comb the long hair, afterwards putting it back on the torso. She is not one bit afraid. She is used to it.

Yet another incident, a lady was walking to a wake and halfway on the street, she could not move her legs but felt like they were being tugged at gluing her feet to the ground. She then chided whoever that was pulling that prank and immediately, she was able to lift her legs to move again.

The son of this same lady used to work as an elevator-technician. He was alone one night fixing an elevator that has broken down when suddenly the elevator moved up and down with him in it. He figured it must have been a ghostly prank so he sort of 'ordered' the prank be stopped. The elevator stopped.

This one happened in NZ, Auckland, to be exact. This was related to me by a good friend. This girlfriend was on a holiday with another girlfriend and was staying in a 5-star hotel on an upper floor. They were there for four nights. On the morning they were due to depart for another city, my girlfriend asked her travel companion as to what she was groping for under her pillow the night before. Her companion revealed that someone took off her pullover that she was wearing over a short-sleeved cotton blouse.

My girlfriend then learned that her travel companion actually saw a ghost all dressed in white with long wet hair gliding towards her from the bathroom at about 2:00am in the morning on the first night itself - remember they were there for four nights. She was writing home. That revelation gave my girlfriend goosebumps and was so glad it was end of stay at that place.

Do you have any ghost story or true experience you would like to share?

16 comments:

  1. HAIR STANDING!!!!! Rigid!! Ewwww....

    ReplyDelete
  2. I believe some people see spirits and I do believe those old Chinese superstition, they always said “Don’t take photos inside Chinese temples, you might see the eerie things in photo”.
    I remembered I’d been taken some photos during CNY year inside a temple, I really saw something spooky in one of my photo after printed them out. Oh *O* Spookyyyyyy!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous5:59 PM

    Eeeeee
    Spooky leh
    It's watching ghost film again
    mmmmmm

    ReplyDelete
  4. I have had so many strange, possibly paranormal experiences that I could write a book about them.

    I had a strange youth...my punishment for hanging out with strange people.

    Riddles in the dark; a sound I hear,
    Behind the wall the window slowly moves.
    There's no one in there, but I mustn't fear.
    Hold out against the force that nothing proves.
    Only I know that it's there...

    ReplyDelete
  5. AIYOO.... happy ar, i m alone at home at night reading your post, who knows a post starts with a walk in the woods would bring to ghosts??? now cham la, all my hair standing liao, and i dare not go out of my room despite i wanna go to the loo so much... how ar how ar?

    ^_^

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  6. Today's post consists of trees, flowers and ghosts - all shrouded in dense haze from head to toes.

    But spirits are not afraid of smog,
    it is like some gifts burned for them, as during the Chinese hungry ghost festival.

    They are round us, some are bad, while there good ones too. Some people even keep spirits of young children in bottles, to protect their children and home!

    Trees and plants thrive in haze
    taking in the nutrients and carbon dioxide to give off oxygen which we long for.

    So we're the only party suffering in haze, and have to wait till the monsoon season brings rain sometime in late October.

    Bougainvillea is a nice flowering plant with strong stem
    and twigs; and some flowers are off-white too. They have torns and make good as hedge plants to fence the garden.

    ReplyDelete
  7. LB, really???

    PP, I never knew that about not taking pictures in temples. Thanks. So will you be showing us that picture you took?

    Pandabonium, not to worry, we are not losing it. These are just ghost stories even though they are true experiences. But how many of us have actually seen ghosts first-hand or will ever see any? I have not - knocking on wood - and hope never to.

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  8. Z, spooky? That's why I did not name the shopping complex.

    ReplyDelete
  9. MM, that sounds interesting, the stories I mean. A book sounds like a good idea.

    The mind is a silly thing;
    Willing every fling.
    Enough of that fear;
    Who said anyone's here!
    Oh dear! It's only a gosling.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Aiyoh, YD, these are only stories, although real ones. What's frightening to me are movies. That's why I don't watch horror movies as I tend to get nightmares.

    Like Pandabonium said, get a grip. LOL.

    Joe, spirits are not afraid of smog..hmmm... that's a thought.

    I always thought that the off-white flowers are at the end of their blossom life and are about to fall off. Or am I wrong?

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  11. i hav no stories to share...but but just last year i found out that fasting month is just like month 7 in lunar to the malays.

    But maybe u knew it already.

    hehe...pha pha

    ReplyDelete
  12. RS, no, I'm afraid I didn't know about that. Thanks for sharing that info. hmm....

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  13. Just had to comment, that experience by your girlfriend in Auckland is horrifying, wonder how she could keep her composure. She must be quite used to this type of situation.

    ReplyDelete
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