Ghost Season

The acrid smell of burning paper stung my nose immediately as I exited my building in Sai Ying Pun. Directly in front of me were my neighbors – people I pass daily with a polite nod – bent down, and fishing around in a large plastic bag for what looked like gold bars and throwing them onto a small street fire. They lit them from a row of slim red candles that resembled bottle rockets, or votive candles in a church. Into the flames went more gold bars, and what looked like a paper Louis Vuitton handbag and paper money; lots of money.
The middle of July heralds the beginning of ghost season in Chinese culture I would later find out, and sure enough, as I walked around the neighborhood that night every building was busy solemnly burning their material offerings to the dead. For reasons left largely unexplained, this time of year brings out lost souls wandering around in Hong Kong’s version of purgatory, and they roam the streets at night looking for warm bodies to enter – most unwelcome news for a night owl like myself. As I walked down the hill towards the earthier districts below Queen’s Road West, the fires got bigger and the offerings gaudier. Outside of a cheap home furnishings shop on Center Street an old couple had a real bonfire going, and I’m sure I saw a ‘Mercedes Benz’ and a cardboard McMansion get tossed into the blaze along with all the counterfeit cash. Turning up her nose at such a display (the admiration engraved on her face), a woman who owns the bake shop next door pulled down the iron gates to close early for the night, or maybe just to block out the smoke.
Later, after finishing off a voluptuous mound of ‘duck ricey’ (pidgin English for barbeque duck with sour plum sauce, rice and a side of dark green choy sum) at a favorite local restaurant, I washed it all down with a tall iced lemon tea. No place in the world does either of these things better than Hong Kong. Sated, I decided to take an evening constitutional around the neighborhood as I am wont to do. I was amazed at the fires burning simply everywhere. It’s not uncommon to see people burning paper money at any hour of the day in Hong Kong for a variety of reasons, but this was unprecedented. There were people queuing up outside buildings, waiting to make their ersatz material offerings - to keep their ancestors happy, and on that side of the material world. As a result the air was thick with smoke, and security guards were standing by, intently looking on with buckets and squeeze bottles of water. The look of spiritual fervor on people’s faces reminded me that this was only part superstition.
By ten o’clock I found myself walking through King George V Park under its august Banyan trees, with their sinewy arms and overhanging rainforest boughs. As a New Yorker I appreciate the nocturnal habits of Hong Kongers, and usually the park would still be bustling at that time, but the usual soccer match wasn’t happening, and the last of the joggers and chatty walkers had left already. I was suddenly alone with a ragtag pride of street cats that often follows me on my walks, looking to mooch a meal. I sometimes bring them treats from one of the many pet shops in the area, amused by their motley patchwork of inbred patterns and colors. As I exited the park on Eastern Street I noticed that indeed, almost everyone was off the streets. There was one group of people still burning a large pile of paper tithes on High Street and I walked over to them and watched the silent ceremony. Nobody seemed to notice me as I pulled out my phone and surreptitiously snapped a few blurry shots of the flames, as high as the people now, flickering into the Hong Kong sky. I wanted to ask someone a few questions about it all, but the intensity on their faces rendered me suddenly shy; an intruder in their ritual.
Walking home along the quiet, hilly streets I started thinking about all the ghosts from my own past; relatives, friends, classmates...people who were, and no longer were. In the West we never think of having a real connection to them once they’re gone, and they are called memories; it would never occur to us to try and appease them or make them happier in their next life. We visit the graves occasionally and place flowers there, maybe. We certainly wouldn’t worry about being seized on the street during a certain season of the year, with all of its attendant horror film connotations. But I do remember hearing ‘ghost stories’ at summer camp, and even dressing up as a ghost for my first Halloween night, all in good fun though, and not really scary. As a kid camping with my father and uncles, the truly scary story was the one about an escaped murderer from the local penitentiary who was at large in the area – as they jerked around and whispered ‘What’s that!’ every time there was a noise in the woods, and then laughed as the kids all shrieked and jumped out of our skins. I couldn’t sleep at all that night and every noise in the forest was the maniac coming to kill us. But it was real people we were afraid of in our world, not ghosts.
Creeping down the steep slope of Center Street towards Victoria Harbor, I was once again struck by the similarities between Hong Kong and New York; half the street was torn up from road work, and on the other side was construction where they are building a new subway station. This provides a daily urban cacophony that I am somehow conditioned to accept and ignore. Just beyond the future subway entrance stands a row of derelict Chinese shop houses that sit back on an old disused lane. They were slated for demolition ages ago but have been hanging on, housing some of the construction gear now. A few weeks earlier I had tried to get up there for a closer look into the lane, but was blocked by the site manager.
I was surprised the first time I noticed them sitting there, halfway up the hill between two roads, with high rises on every side – they are a moldy, rotting piece of old Hong Kong. The sides are lumpy whitewashed plaster, with exposed wooden beam studs jutting out in a few places; they look like they will fall in at any moment. There are small trees and moss growing out from every opportunity: the cracks in the wall, the crooked window frames, and from beneath the buckling old-style Chinese tile roof. Some of the houses in the row once had small balconies in front, with weather beaten doors and windows in warped, twisted traditional patterns – most of the glass long since gone. Some have been torn off altogether over the years, replaced with more functional iron grates and other makeshift improvements like bricked up windows and fiberglass awnings. The house in the middle even has a small rooftop widows walk, adding a bit of dilapidated dash to the place.
Now as I passed the row houses’ weedy, toothed silhouette I noticed a small entryway along the side of the construction site that I hadn’t noticed before. I cautiously ventured up the steps into the narrow alleyway, and to my surprise I saw that it ran all the way back behind a high rise apartment to the old houses. I crept along in the shadows, past clothes lines and discarded easy chairs; behind one house was a tiny patio of chipped tiles and cracked cement with a faded mahjong table in its center. All the lights were out on the ground floor, but light came filtering down from apartments above. I looked up at the shadowy shop houses and was filled with a strange melancholy. Who had lived there, I wondered? Were they poor, hard working people who lived in cramped conditions, or were these once the homes of proud Cantonese people who had money, as the misplaced widows walk would suggest? I wanted to take a photo now that I was up close, but somehow the idea of the flash seemed obscene. Maybe subconsciously I didn’t want to upset the spirits that surely had resided here for so long. Then I smiled as I realized I was looking at a haunted house during ghost season.