Author: Kathleen Stephenson
December 26, 2008
I was taught, like many toddlers that cows go moo, pigs go oink, and ghosts go boo. As a child ghosts were as real as farm animals, but as years passed on I re-learned that ghosts could range from the creatures that chased packman to Patrick Swayze possessing Whoopi. My understanding of ghosts were tainted by pop culture, and left me rejecting the thought of them.
So when Xuan-An told me she saw a ghost in our room my mind referenced Girl Scout stories, Casper, and children being sucked into a television by poltergeist.–
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, I saw it pass by just before you came in the room.”
“You’re crazy ghosts aren’t real. I’ve heard cows go moo, pigs go oink, but never have I heard a ghost go boo.”
–I found it my mission to haunt the room. Xuan-An would come home from class, and I would pop out from behind the door yelling boo with a white blanket over my head. The amusement lasted for about two days; I became bored with it.
Later that month I accompanied Xuan-An home to help her prepare for her father’s remembrance party. She had lost him only four months before to pancreas cancer. The death was hard on her, and she wanted someone to accompany her to the ceremony. When we arrived at her house I was not sure what to expect. I always knew that Xuan-An was frugal with her money, but I did not think about where she came from. Her family rented a small single bedroom house in a “dangerous” part of Sioux City, Iowa. It constantly smelled of rotting pork due to the local meat packaging plants, and probably smelled worse to a family of vegetarians. As we opened the door a small haze of incense flooded the cold winter air. Inside I saw what looked as shrines. Some of the shrines were placed before an image of what I would call a party of the gods Buddha and Jesus hanging out in the clouds. Although the god fiesta was as catchy as a shiny object to a three year old there was an image that stood out the most distinctively of all. As Xuan-An walked past it surprised me when she made a bow with her hands a few times. There was decaying fruit place in front of it. The wrinkled pears and apples reminded me of my own mortality, and that I too will pass. The picture that was placed behind the fruit was of her father. After a few minutes of speaking with her mother, prayers that I couldn’t understand, and a small snack it was time to travel to the temple. I drove the family there because the car had broken down a few days earlier. The temple was inside of a house; a meager Iowawegian house had become a temple. Immediately after entering the temple I took off my shoes. I was tipped off by the pile of tiny shoes in the corner. After deserting my shoes I walked into a room that looked like a rainbow exploded in it. Gold, pink, yellow, and blue banners covered the walls. Beautifully decorated statues remained at the front of the room in addition to baskets and baskets of rotting fruit. In front with the statues a picture of Xuan-An’s father was posted. Xuan-An left and began what I assumed was praying. It was then that I spoke with the monk of her temple. He was a little older than I was with a shaved head. He was draped in a yellow cloth, and wore nothing on his feet—
“What is the purpose of the fruit platter offering?”
“Ah,” the monk replied, “Father is ghost, ties on earth. Needs food to carry on.”—
The fruit offering was not a Memento Mori, but rather to perpetuate afterlife. After a lot of silence and contemplation I finally realized Xuan-An had not seen the type of ghost that says boo, but rather her father the one who still whispered I love you.
–Goddamn it Katie!–
My cultural illiteracy had made me feel similar too how some Americans felt after realizing how devastating the Atomic Bomb actually was. What do I do? I thought. I wanted to learn, and not make that mistake again.
After returning to Des Moines I stopped by the library and searched for “Buddhism + Ghosts –Western Pop Culture.” After a small hunt that resembled the ones I partook in on Easter as a child I found that in Buddhism ghosts are unhappy spirits that hover around the fringes of the human world and can sometimes be glimpsed as shadowy forms. For the most part, ghosts are former human beings who developed strong attachments which keep them bound to the earth. [1]
Could I have made this even more depressing? She saw her father as a dark form who lingered on earth, and I was mocking him.
I learned too late that some Eastern cultures, specifically Cao Dai, take Ghosts more seriously than my own Midwestern upbringing. In my new reality cows go moo, pigs go oink, ghosts go I love you, and I go I’m sorry for my misunderstanding.
[1] Keown, Damien. Buddhism: a Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.
