The Ghosts Have Gone

Here’s a little story of cultural faux pas.

“It’s OK,” said the restaurant chef, who was smoking with me on the back patio of his French restaurant in Chinatown’s Duxton Hill area. “The ghosts have gone.”

“Oh my God!” I said in earnest, as I switched from flicking my ashes from my right hand to my left. “If I have offended you then I am sorry.”

I did not realize that I was dropping cigarette ash from my Marlboro Ultra onto a makeshift Buddhist alter made up of three sets of incense sticks, flowers and food. I was mortified…so thoughtless. I just didn’t see it. I never thought to look.

“As long as you didn’t mean it,” said the waiter who was also smoking there. He had a New York-ish accent. He went to Columbia University and was now back working in Singapore.

What I had stumbled upon was an offering to the dead as part of the Chinese Ghost Festival, which celebrates the connection between the living and the dead. It occurs on the 15th day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar, which this year was Sept. 15. I made my mistake on the 18th, hence the comment that the event had just passed and therefore “the ghosts had gone.” But when were they here? I wondered.

The Buddhist celebration honors the day when the veil between the living and the dead is lifted and spirits, particularly those of ancestors and family, visit the earth again. The holiday is marked by colorful lanterns, which shine their light to guide the dead home, decorations and burning incense and joss paper, which are beautifully decorated thin sheets of bamboo paper that are meant to ensure that loved ones have good things in the afterlife.

My high-rise condominium is situated next to HDBs, or Housing Development Board buildings, where many Singaporeans live. (They are not projects nor are they free, but rather government-sponsored housing that offer low-rate mortgages so locals can own their homes.) In front of these complexes are large barbeque-like structures and stand-alone fire pits that the people there use to burn the joss paper as well as paper-mache items. I have never seen the paper-mache “items” but I suspect they are in the shapes of dragons and birds and such icons of Chinese culture that all have deep, spiritual meanings.

I have seen people standing in their doorways bowing and lighting incense in the mornings or slipping one piece of paper after another into the fire pits. I passed by a man in a wheelchair struggling to place incense and food on a bridge that crosses the Geylang River. I did not know what they were doing. But I learned at the restaurant, smoking with a very gracious chef and waiter who explained their holiday to me.

Smoking is certainly a bad habit but it is what led me to learn about this austere event. I am grateful for intellectual (and spiritual) enlightenment in all its forms. When I went home I stood on my balcony and lit a stick of incense for my Dad, George McKenna of Mystic, who for many years was the principal of Mystic Middle School. I named my daughter Georgia Grace after him. That night I saw her smiling at something outside the glass doors that lead to the balcony. Thanks for stopping by, Dad. We miss you.

--Sept. 29th is the 16th anniversary of my Dad’s death

[NOTE: This holiday sounds a lot like the pagan-turned-Christian All-Hallow’s Eve, when the dead roam the streets of the world. Funny how religions can be similar.]