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Dead serious

Nury Vitatti on why sticking chopsticks upright in your rice bowl isn’t such a bad thing

In Hong Kong, some of our best friends are ghosts.

I don’t believe in ghosts. I prefer the theory that ‘dumb’ objects, such as haunted houses, ‘possessed’ TV sets, rocks, trains, politicians, etc, may occasionally manifest signs of sentience, but never develop actual conscious intelligence. Well, some of the rocks might.

My friend Ah-Lum believes in ghosts and likes to explain Hong Kong occult traditions to visitors’ children: “Never put your chopsticks upright in your rice. The ghosts see them as funeral incense sticks and take it as an invitation to join the meal.”

I was about to shut him up when I noticed his young female audience looked delighted. “Cool,” said one. Their parents told me that children these days play with Ouija boards, which consist of a flat surface bearing letters and words and a pointer that moves randomly, allegedly guided by creatures who are simultaneously alive and dead, such as ghosts, zombies, spirits, Rolling Stones, members of the Chinese politburo, etc.

Top seller in recent years was the Hasbro toy company’s Ouija For Girls, issued in bright pink. It made me think. Pretty much every country has some sort of tradition of people contacting the dead, but in the past, the activity involved adults asking questions which made sense to ghosts, such as: “Are you there, Auntie? Can you tell me where you buried the money, you miserable cow?”

These days, Hasbro is empowering massive numbers of pre-teens in Hong Kong and elsewhere to use these channels to deal with pre-teen issues. I find this frightening. I mean, you gotta feel sorry for the ghosts.

Imagine the scene. In Hades, a group of ghosts will be sitting around quietly being dead or whatever ghosts do, when a screen comes to life with a question from the land of the living.

Whoever is on duty will read it out loud. “It’s from Lingling, aged nine, in Hong Kong,” he says. “I had a pink flower bag but Sheung-yee got one so I wasn’t her friend anymore but she gave a Justin bracelet to Mandy’s sister’s friend who told the teacher. Shall I invite Tsz-lam to my party?”

The ghosts look baffled. “What does it mean?”

The chief ghost shakes his head. “I think it must be some kind of code.”

Along comes another question: “Can you tell Romeo Beckham to wait eight years till I’m old enough to marry him? If you don’t, I’ll scream and scream until I’m sick.”

Then another: “I want a pony RIGHT NOW.”

And another: “If you don’t materialise a pack of Barbie Glitter Stickers in my room in ten minutes I will kill my baby brother.”

I looked up some of the toy review sites on the internet to see what buyers had said about Ouija For Girls. Here’s a comment from a mother in Chicago (I didn’t make this up): “I bought this for my daughter, thinking she could talk with Grandma and Grandpa now that they’ve passed over... We will be in the middle of a conversation with someone, and some demon will take over and start spouting out filthy stuff. Needs more R and D.”

On behalf of all parents, I have a request for ghosts reading this. Please respond to all questions with: “You will get a pony AND Barbie Glitter Stickers AND marriage to Romeo Beckham if you do two hours’ homework a night, eat your greens and do everything mum and dad say from now on. Deal?”

Some people will prefer it if we keep this world and the next separate.

But this is Hong Kong, which means we have Hungry Ghost Month every year, so even squeamish or skeptical people can’t keep away from the world of the occult.

If you can’t beat them, join them—and make everyone laugh. Stick your chopsticks upright in your children’s rice bowl and shout: “Now the ghost is sitting next to you.”

Nury Vittachi is an award-winning author and journalist based in Hong Kong. He is best known for his comedy-crime novel series, The Feng Shui Detective. Contact him via nury@vittachi.com or through his public Facebook page.