The Dharma Force

Ghost Stories

When I was in college a few years back, I found an interesting book in the main library one day.
It was a translation of an ancient Chinese book. The book was full of weird stories.
Ghost stories, Fox spirit stories, demon stories.
It was like "Ghost Hunter" meets "X-files" and Steve King.

The author, the ancient Chinese one, opened a tea salon in his hometown. The tea and the service was free, if you could give him an original story.

The book was very famous. I read it in my youth. It was one of a kind. And at that time, I did not like it that much. It just felt weird to me.

When I read the English translation in the library, I was stunned. It actually felt right and made more sense ... in English. Weird, Huh? It was like the author was out of date and out of place with his time period.

I will include a short story here from memory. Judge it for yourself. You have to keep in mind. China was a very structured society at that time. Everyone was polite, all social protocol needed to be observed. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, otherwise like the White Queen said, "Off with his head!" (Or was it the Black Queen, Red Queen? Tahoe Blue Queen? )

"The Painted Skin"
One day, a young scholar found a young pretty girl crying alone on a desolated road. When he inquired, he was told that she had just escaped from some bandits. The bandits killed all of her parents, and robbed her clean.

The young scholar took pity on her, and brought her home. He told his wife of her story and she was invited to stay.
Soon, the young man fell for the girl. He took her as a concubine. (This is ancient China, mind you.)

One day, the wife went to the market, and she was stopped by a Taoist. She gave him alms, but he did not leave. He looked at her and said, "There is great evil in your house." The wife thought him as a mad man or a fraud. So she left.

When she returned to her house, she found her husband was taking a nap. She wanted to talk to someone about this Taoist, so she went to the concubine's room. The room was quiet. The wife looked through the window and saw a horrible Demon stood by the dressing table. She was so scared that she froze. Then she saw that the Demon was drawing something on the dressing table. When he was done, he picked it up, and the wife saw that it was a complete set of human skin (Remember the movie "Jeeper Creeper". I always wondered where the idea was from) The Demon was applying makeup to the skin. When he was satisfied, He put on the skin and transformed himself into the beautiful concubine.

The wife gathered her courage and left quietly. She went back to the market to find the Taoist. She bowed to him and begged him to expel that demon. The Taoist shook his head and said he had just calculated the future. (use the look of "I Ching" you can calculate your future too. How about I save that for next entry) If he interfered, chances are her husband would die. The wife said that if the Taoist did not interfere, her husband would die anyway.

So the Taoist gave her a box, and told her to throw at the Demon. But she had to be careful that her husband was not at home when she did it. Also he told her in time of emergency, call his name, and he would be there.

When the wife got home, she found that the concubine was alone in her room, and her husband was not there. So she went to the concubine's room and threw the box at her. A burst of flame appeared, and the concubine was on fire. The wife ran out of the room and locked it behind her.

The concubine was screaming inside, and she was banging on the door. Just at that moment, the husband returned. He heard the concubine's cry and he ran to her rescue. He broke down the door and threw a pail of water at the concubine. Water put out the fire, but it also dissolved the makeup on the skin.

The husband screamed in fright. The Demon pulled off the skin and cut open the husband's chest. He pulled out his heart and ate it. Then he got out of the room and went for the wife.

When her husband appeared, the wife knew the fate could not be avoided. She called the Taoist's name.

A clap of thunder and the Taoist appeared. He spit out a bright flying sword from his mouth and cut the demon in half. the demon dissolved into black smoke. The Taoist took out a vase and murmured some words. The vase sucked in all the smoke.

The wife began to cry as her husband was dead. She begged the Taoist to save her husband. The Taoist shook his head and said that he could not do it.

However, the Taoist said that there was one person could bring her husband back.
The wife begged the Taoist to tell her. The Taoist said that as he walked through the market today, he saw a beggar, a leper sat by the town square. He could save her husband's life.

The wife asked what she could do to convince him. The Taoist told her to go to that leper and bowed to him. Do not say a word, just keep bowing to him until he said something. Then whatever he said, she must said yes. And whatever he asked her to do, she must do it, no doubts, no hesitation, then he could save her husband.

So the wife went to the town square and found the leper. She knelt down and started to bow to him, without a word. At first, the leper did not even open his eyes. Then the town's people started to gather. They started to ask the wife what was going on, but the wife did not say a word. She just kept bowing to the leper.

The town's people were all curious. They kept asking the wife questions, but the wife remembered what the Taoist had said. She just kept bowing to the leper.

Then the town's people was angry at the leper. They said they had never seen such a pompous leper.

At the angry words, the leper could not keep his composure. So he opened his eyes and asked the wife, "Why are you here?"

That was not a question that the wife could say yes to, so she kept bowing to him.

The leper frowned, "Why are you doing that?" He asked again. Still no answer.

Finally the leper said, "Do you like me?" The wife remembered what the Taoist said, and she said yes.

The town people started to laugh.

The leper asked again, "Do you love me? Do you want to be with me?" The wife said yes to both.

Then the leper scratched his deformed feet and rubbed some of the gunk off. He said to the wife, "Here, hold my treasure in your left hand."

Even though disgusted, the wife took the smelly gunk from him. The town people started to boo at that point.

Then the leper coughed and spit onto the ground, "Lick up my spit and swallow it."

The town people was stunned. The wife was trembling, but she obeyed. She licked up his foul smelling spit and swallowed.

The leper suddenly laughed hysterically and said, "She loves me! She loves me!"

The town people got angry and they wanted to stone the leper.

Before the wife could beg the leper to save her husband, the leper ran away, chased off by the angry mod.

Shocked and despaired, the wife could not say a word. What she had swallowed, burned in her throat and she wanted to vomit. After searching for the leper for some time, she finally gave up and returned home. The Taoist had put her husband's body on the bed and left.

The wife went to her dead husband, and saw his empty chest was still open. She started to weep, and suddenly she felt nauseated. Before she could turn away, she vomited. The leper's spit came out and dropped into the husband's chest.

It transformed into a new beating heart immediately. The wife was shocked, but she closed his chest wound with her hands. Just when she was looking for some needle and strings to patch him up. The gunk in her left hand melted and dripped onto his chest. The gunk turned liquid and sealed up his wound.

Only a red scar remained. Her husband opened his eyes.

And they lived happily after. Well, that is, the husband did all the house chores while listening to his wife scorn him for picking up strange woman off road.

The only victim in the story was the leper. He was last seen on some desolate road leaving town, murmuring something about, "'Crazy B****, ... Desperate Housewife, ... Had to leave my sunny spot in the square ... " (Ok, fine, I added this part. )
The end.

Pretty interesting, huh? He had tons of these stuff in his book. This was just one story that I could not forget. Well the reason was that in the 50s or 60s, a filming company in Hong Kong made a movie out of it. When I watched the movie "Painting Skin" at the tender age of 7, I thought it was a documentary on body painting. It was all very nice but confusing until the Demon showed up peeling off the skin.

Needless to say, it scared the living daylight out of me. To this day, I have no recollection of the movie starting from the guy dropped the paintbrush.

And excuse me for a moment, when I curl up in a fetal position and scream my head off.

"MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY!"

(Notice: Mr. Josh Cham was admitted to the local mental institution today for a psych eval. Please come back next time as we examine the possibility that Alice was abducted and brainwashed to think she was at the so called "Wonderland")

("Off with her head!")