Of Trees, Flowers and Ghosts

It was one chilly morning but it wasn't the mist that made it so but more because of the haze that was preventing sunshine from coming through.



Trees have always fascinated me. Could it be the colour green or the protection we conveniently glean or could it be in a previous life I was a tree.

It was on this hazy morning that I took some tree pictures and while doing so spotted two monkeys frolicking noisily among the trees but they were too quick for my aim.





I took a picture of this flower. Bougainvillea it is. Do not know how many colours there are but I have seen them in this bright purple, in their reddish purple as well as in pretty orange. I love this plant for the flowers that last for months. Would they look pretty in a vase, I have often wondered. But no, would prefer them sitting prettily on the plant in all its beauty.



Did you know that some Chinese believe the bougainvillea is a ghost in the form of this flower? A friend told me that her mom related a story that tells of a lady ghost who turned into this flower. Of course, not everyone believes this tale or is even aware of this tale.

Speaking of ghosts, do you believe in their existence? Pictures do not lie, we are told. A friend two months ago took a picture of his friend sitting on the steps of a staircase in a downtown shopping complex and beside him sat ...you guessed it... another figure who was not physically there. The picture is still in his camera today.

Another incident - someone walking to buy lunch encountered a road full of those beings which his friend did not see at all. That was in the seventh month of the Lunar Calendar. To our foreign non-Chinese friends, the seventh month is the month where the gates of the underworld are left open and spirits are free to roam the earth.

Yet another seventh month incident - An uncle's classmate went to market one morning with his grandma who was obviously agitated by the crowd, complaining as to why there were so many people that morning at the same time she walking in a zig-zag fashion as though trying to avoid bumping into others. Uncle's classmate then realised that his grandma must have be seeing them around.

What about this one, a lady I know has a sister who sees spirits as second nature. She once saw one removing her head to comb the long hair, afterwards putting it back on the torso. She is not one bit afraid. She is used to it.

Yet another incident, a lady was walking to a wake and halfway on the street, she could not move her legs but felt like they were being tugged at gluing her feet to the ground. She then chided whoever that was pulling that prank and immediately, she was able to lift her legs to move again.

The son of this same lady used to work as an elevator-technician. He was alone one night fixing an elevator that has broken down when suddenly the elevator moved up and down with him in it. He figured it must have been a ghostly prank so he sort of 'ordered' the prank be stopped. The elevator stopped.

This one happened in NZ, Auckland, to be exact. This was related to me by a good friend. This girlfriend was on a holiday with another girlfriend and was staying in a 5-star hotel on an upper floor. They were there for four nights. On the morning they were due to depart for another city, my girlfriend asked her travel companion as to what she was groping for under her pillow the night before. Her companion revealed that someone took off her pullover that she was wearing over a short-sleeved cotton blouse.

My girlfriend then learned that her travel companion actually saw a ghost all dressed in white with long wet hair gliding towards her from the bathroom at about 2:00am in the morning on the first night itself - remember they were there for four nights. She was writing home. That revelation gave my girlfriend goosebumps and was so glad it was end of stay at that place.

Do you have any ghost story or true experience you would like to share?