Story

Today’s ghost story is a touching tale from “Patrick” of Laos:

I was raised in Laos by my mother and her family. Since my parents had always had a bad relationship they divorced shortly after my birth, and since my father was a foreigner I never had more than a passing relationship with him or his family and that fact sometimes made me sad.

In my hometown I would often pass by the house of a certain friend and when she wasn’t there I sometimes saw an old couple that would smile kindly at me and wave. A detail I remember well about the woman is that she always wore a pair of coral earrings shaped like roses. I was very small and although I was curious about the old couple I assumed they were my friend’s relatives and didn’t worry too much about them. I remember I once asked my friend about the couple but she didn’t seem to know what I was talking about and I didn’t worry too much about it although their faces made an impression on me.

When I was about five years old my uncle sponsored my family and we were able to move to the United States where we settled in El Monte California. The strange thing is that I continued to see the old couple every once in a while. I would see them sometimes at the market or taking a walk but each time I saw them for one reason or another I wasn’t able to speak to them they were always a little bit too far. I thought I must be seeing things or that maybe the old people had common faces that I was mistaking everywhere. Anyway, after a certain age I no longer saw the old couple and I stopped giving them thought until many years later when I visited my father’s sister in Chinatown for the first time and immediately noticed an elaborately framed photograph of two young people on their wedding day.

The sight of the picture made me catch my breath. The woman was wearing the same earrings that I had seen on the old woman and she had the same expression in her eyes. My aunt says that it’s a picture of my grandparents and I guess I’ll always wonder if my grandparents spirits felt sorry for me because I didn’t have a father and if they watched over me as a result.

Some time ago I posted about Tama, a cat in Japan who has been granted the title of station master at a small train station. Well, Tama recently got promoted- to SIR TAMA!

Sir Tama!

While the article refers to Tama as a ‘he’, I have to wonder if someone didn’t do their kitty-sexing homework…since calicos are invariably female. I should know, I have one and it is most definitely female (she changes her mind constantly and eats chocolate and buys shoes all day long) . So maybe that makes Tama DAME TAMA instead?

By the way, if anyone can get me some of those Tama stickers I will be your slave forever.

A Japanese man wants to marry an unnamed comic book character, and have it all nice and legal.

Seriously…

That’s a good idea, because I bet those superhero leagues have great insurance and if you’re legally married you can get on the plan!

If this law is passed, I can move to Japan and marry Batou from Ghost in the Shell. Except it would be an unhappy marriage because he is still jonesing for the Major. And we couldn’t have kids, probably. And inviting the Tachikoma over for Thanksgiving….eh. Forget it. I’ll stay with the current husband; at least he has eyes.

Today’s ghost story is a classic Japanese folk tale; this version is taken from Lafcadio Hearn’s Kwaidan. He titled it “A Dead Secret”:

A DEAD SECRET

A long time ago, in the province of Tamba (1), there lived a rich merchant
named Inamuraya Gensuke. He had a daughter called O-Sono. As she was very
clever and pretty, he thought it would be a pity to let her grow up with
only such teaching as the country-teachers could give her: so he sent her,
in care of some trusty attendants, to Kyoto, that she might be trained in
the polite accomplishments taught to the ladies of the capital. After she
had thus been educated, she was married to a friend of her father’s family
– a merchant named Nagaraya;– and she lived happily with him for nearly
four years. They had one child, — a But O-Sono fell ill and died, in the
fourth year after her marriage.

On the night after the funeral of O-Sono, her little son said that his
mamma had come back, and was in the room upstairs. She had smiled at him,
but would not talk to him: so he became afraid, and ran away. Then some of
the family went upstairs to the room which had been O-Sono’s; and they were
startled to see, by the light of a small lamp which had been kindled before
a shrine in that room, the figure of the dead mother. She appeared as if
standing in front of a tansu, or chest of drawers, that still contained her
ornaments and her wearing-apparel. Her head and shoulders could be very
distinctly seen; but from the waist downwards the figure thinned into
invisibility;– it was like an imperfect reflection of her, and transparent
as a shadow on water.

Then the folk were afraid, and left the room. Below they consulted
together; and the mother of O-Sono’s husband said: “A woman is fond of her
small things; and O-Sono was much attached to her belongings. Perhaps she
has come back to look at them. Many dead persons will do that, — unless
the things be given to the parish-temple. If we present O-Sono’s robes and
girdles to the temple, her spirit will probably find rest.”

I was agreed that this should be done as soon as possible. So on the
following morning the drawers were emptied; and all of O-Sono’s ornaments
and dresses were taken to the temple. But she came back the next night, and
looked at the tansu as before. And she came back also on the night
following, and the night after that, and every night; — and the house
became a house of fear.

The mother of O-Sono’s husband then went to the parish-temple, and told
the chief priest all that had happened, and asked for ghostly counsel. The
temple was a Zen temple; and the head-priest was a learned old man, known
as Daigen Osho. He said: “There must be something about which she is
anxious, in or near that tansu.” — “But we emptied all the drawers,”
replied the woman; — “there is nothing in the tansu.” — “Well,” said
Daigen Osho, “to-night I shall go to your house, and keep watch in that
room, and see what can be done. You must give orders that no person shall
enter the room while I am watching, unless I call.”

After sundown, Daigen Osho went to the house, and found the room made
ready for him. He remained there alone, reading the sutras; and nothing
appeared until after the Hour of the Rat. [1] Then the figure of O-Sono
suddenly outlined itself in front of the tansu. Her face had a wistful
look; and she kept her eyes fixed upon the tansu.

The priest uttered the holy formula prescribed in such cases, and then,
addressing the figure by the kaimyo [2] of O-Sono, said: — “I have come
here in order to help you. Perhaps in that tansu there is something about
which you have reason to feel anxious. Shall I try to find it for you?” The
shadow appeared to give assent by a slight motion of the head; and the
priest, rising, opened the top drawer. It was empty. Successively he opened
the second, the third, and the fourth drawer; — he searched carefully
behind them and beneath them;– he carefully examined the interior of the
chest. He found nothing. But the figure remained gazing as wistfully as
before. “What can she want?” thought the priest. Suddenly it occurred to
him that there might be something hidden under the paper with which the
drawers were lined. He removed the lining of the first drawer:– nothing!
He removed the lining of the second and third drawers:– still nothing. But
under the lining of the lowermost drawer he found — a letter. “Is this the
thing about which you have been troubled?” he asked. The shadow of the
woman turned toward him, — her faint gaze fixed upon the letter. “Shall I
burn it for you?” he asked. She bowed before him. “It shall be burned in
the temple this very morning,” he promised;– “and no one shall read it,
except myself.” The figure smiled and vanished.

Dawn was breaking as the priest descended the stairs, to find the family
waiting anxiously below. “Do not be anxious,” he said to them: “She will
not appear again.” And she never did.

The letter was burned. It was a love-letter written to O-Sono in the time
of her studies at Kyoto. But the priest alone knew what was in it; and the
secret died with him.

You can find more of his work (and many others’) at the most excellent Project Gutenberg website.

My short story “Noble Calling” is printed in the newest issue of A Thousand Faces, a totally amazing superhero fiction journal that has incredible writing every single issue (so I have no idea why they accepted me…). The editor, Frank Byrns, even said something nice about me in the introduction! Neat!

The Intro!

The Story!

Today’s totally creepy Asian ghost story comes from the Phillipines. It is about people getting drunk and seeing a scary floating lady (hmmm…maybe the alcohol had something to do with it?) but the story is nice and shivery all the same.  Sorry for the pic; Martha Stewart/Good Housekeeping Halloween decorations aren’t usually my thing but the picture was a good size.

The Story

Actually this story happened to my mom. It was during the 60’s, when she was still sleeping with her brothers and sisters in one house. They have inherited a big house from my grandfather (he was a doctor), so having a couple of her cousins sleeping over is not a problem. Their house was built near a river with a wooden bridge over it (you’ll know what the wooden bridge is about later on my story).

Here’s where her story begins. All of them came home late from a party (back in the 60’s parties were great and being invited to one means you are popular), they were all tired and decided to call it a night and went to their own rooms. My mom was staying with 2 of her sisters in one room. Her bed was located right beside a big window that’s made out of wood and would just open from the middle then the shatters will just slide from side to side. That night, due to excessive drinking, my mom woke up because she needs to go to the bathroom. So she went and went back to bed. When she was about to doze off, she could feel something or someone was watching her. She opened her eyes and she saw a lady with long black hair outside their window, she was also wearing a black dress and her eyes were red. The lady was staring at her with a creepy grin on her face. My mom couldn’t move. The scary part of it was my mom’s room was located at the second floor; in short the lady was floating. She tried to call her sisters but they could not hear her. She felt so scared and just covered her self with her quilt. After a few minutes, she tried to check if the lady was gone but when she peeped out of her quilt, the lady was still there, staring and grinning at her. She just decided to just hide herself under quilt and eventually she had fallen asleep.

The next day, everybody went down for breakfast. My mom did too, even though she was tired due to what happened that night. She did not try to tell everybody because they would just think that she was dreaming. Then a guy cousin of her came out looking as if he hadn’t slept all night and just freaked out on them saying that he saw a lady outside their window (the boy’s bedroom was located on the first floor). Then he described what he saw, my mom realized that he was describing the same lady she saw outside her window. So she decided to tell them on what happened to her that night. Most of them were skeptical.

Later that week, my mom was just about to get in their house when she saw a big commotion beside the wooden bridge. There were a lot of people looking over with the police too. She saw that her cousin was one of the spectators. When he saw her, he just ran to her and said that somebody found a sack with a dead girl inside. Later in the news, they post a picture of the girl and it was the lady my mom and uncle saw. They did believe them now.

A 41-year old man has been charged with copyright violation for creating and selling a replica Juken Sentai Gekirenja costume, scaring the bejeezus out of the Japanese cosplay community - which operates entirely to replicate copyrighted works. Then again, if this means I won’t have to see overweight bearded dudes cosplaying as Sailor Moon at conventions anymore, then I’m down.

The man was arrested on Sept. 25 on suspicion of conspiring with a 47-year-old doctor in Ichinomiya, Aichi Prefecture, to reproduce the mask, suit, boots and other costume parts of Gekirenja without consent from Toei Co., which holds the rights for the character.

According to police, the two sold the costume through an Internet auction site to a 38-year-old man in Osaka Prefecture for 84,000 yen.

The Ibaraki man who acts as Ibaliger told The Asahi Shimbun earlier this month that he did paintwork to create the mask, but was not aware that the outfit would be sold.

Police quoted the man as saying that he had been a fan of masked superheros such as Kamen Raida (masked rider) since he was a child, and aside from collecting related goods, he had been creating outfits by himself. He was quoted as telling police that he “got a kick out of dressing up (in the outfits) in front of people.”

Despite recent comments made by newly minted Japanese PM Taro Aso that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il ‘…may be hospitalized’, Japanese intelligence reportedly has no ‘effing clue where the sumbitch is. Not that it matters, really, whether he’s dead or not - as journalist Christopher Hitchens likes to point out, North Korea is ruled by dead people already.

You may ask why Bush’s letter was headed “Dear Mr. Chairman” instead of “Dear Mr. President.” As one who has been in Pyongyang and verified this himself, I can tell you the reason. Kim Jong-il, the “dear leader,” is the head of the army and of the party but not of the state. The office of the presidency is still held by his long-dead father, the “great leader” Kim Il Sung. This makes North Korea into a necrocracy or a thanatocracy—no joke when you consider that its two chief pursuits consist of threatening to murder its neighbors while actually murdering its own civilians. One might feel slightly ashamed that the Bush administration seemed to raise the hopes of the North Korean slaves before dashing them, but we can perhaps console ourselves with the thought that—absolutist control being what it is—very few of the enslaved ever got to hear of the promise before it was discarded.

Man, if you believe the headlines these days, it looks like Japanese comics are the new video games. Prosecutors making the case against a pair of Italian students indicted in the murder of 21-year old Meredith Kercher made sideline allegations that the killers may have drawn inspiration from the manga Blood: The Last Vampire.

While there’s no shortage of sexual or violent content in Blood: The Last Vampire, I’ll have to maintain once again that it takes a pretty twisted nut to sexually assault and knife another human being, and that these folk will be happy to take inspiration from just about anything.

Sky News goes the extra mile and dredges up links to a slew of other murders with supposed ties to Japanese comics.

Manga has been directly linked to a death in Belgium, in which a note found next to the victim’s mutilated body referred to a Japanese comic called Death Note.

The animation genre was also connected with the murder of Tokyo-based British teacher Lindsay Hawker, after piles of pornographic comics were found at the suspect’s flat.

With graphic violence and explicit sexual content depicted in many of the Japanese comics, manga is perhaps a sitting target when an explanation is sought for a violent crime.

However, the cause and effect link between violence and manga made by some commentators frustrates and angers fans of the comics.

They point out that within manga there are numerous subtypes and that many are highly respected forms of art.

And while being a something of a cult interest in Europe, manga reading in Japan is a mainstream hobby - the Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso is said to find time to read 10 manga comics a week in between carrying out official duties.

Well, it looks like somebody got something useful out of the Star Wars prequel flicks. A malaysian man was recently arrested for attempting to kill his neighbor by unleashing a number of potentially venemous centipedes (and other bugs) on him. Perhaps the victim had a pair of vigilant Jedi standing outside his bedroom?

A Malaysian man has been accused of trying to hurt his neighbor with a dangerous weapon — centipedes.

Prosecutor Mazri Mohamed said Wednesday that R. Prabakaran has been charged with attempting to cause harm with a dangerous weapon after allegedly unleashing four centipedes and bugs in his neighbor’s bed last week following an argument.

Prabakaran, 21, allegedly climbed on to the roof to enter his neighbor’s house where he committed the offense, Mazri said.