While visiting Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay, I was involved in an eerie woo-woo experience. The spirit world is alive and well in Vietnam. It can be comforting and positive. But not all spirits are comforting or positive. One could say they’re part of woo-woo’s dark side.
As described previously, the woo-woo experience wasn’t mine, per se. I was intimately involved, though, and it had an effect on me just the same.
Are you a good witch or a bad witch?
In The Wizard of Oz, Glinda asks Dorothy, “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”
I think the poor, freaked-out sales girl who was staring at me that day may have been thinking the same thing. “Are you inhabited by a good spirit or a bad spirit?”
Ancestor worship is a common woo-wooish practice throughout the Far East. It’s associated with positive things, mostly. Respecting, honoring, remembering, being thankful. But woo-woo has a dark side, too.
In Vietnam, if the first customer of the day doesn’t spend much, or worse, spends nothing at all, it brings the vendor bad luck for the whole day. But it’s more than just bad luck. It’s dark energy. Maybe evil energy. Maybe a bad spirit has come to visit. Not good.
To get rid of the bad energy, you might see a nervous shop owner take action. They’ll set a small can of flammable material in front of their shop, light it on fire, and jump over the flame three times. Hopefully that takes care of it.
When growing up in Vietnam, a friend’s mom always waited to go shopping until late morning so she wouldn’t be the first customer of the day. No need to possibly be the one who ruins someone’s day, eh?
And in Cambodia…
In Cambodia, traffic accidents involving 3-wheeled tuk-tuks are commonplace. You might even see one… A tuk-tuk driver is thrown onto the ground, injured. He needs help.
But before anyone helps him, someone solemnly jumps over him three times to get rid of dark energy. No point in helping the guy out while the bad energy is still there, eh?
Vietnam has it’s share of spirits who reside in woo-woo’s dark side. There’s one known as the Drowned Spirit. It’s the spirit of someone who has drowned, most likely while alone, with no one to try to save him or at least recover the body. My advice would be to not go for a dip in the river alone at night, no matter how refreshing it might be.
Another Vietnamese spirit is called the Hungry Ghost. A Hungry Ghost is the spirit of someone who died alone, without family or friends to give his soul a proper send-off to the spirit world.
It’s late at night. Hey… did you hear some rustling around in the kitchen? Uh-oh. Vietnamese parents might advise their children not to clink their chopsticks too loudly while eating. We don’t want to get a Hungry Ghost’s attention, eh?
Could telling kids about the Hungry Ghost just be a way Vietnamese parents get them to learn good table manners? Maybe. But I’m pretty sure it’s more than that.
The Creepiest Ghost
And then there’s the scariest spirit that I’ve heard about – the Skinless Ghost. The Skinless Ghost is the spirit of someone who died deep in the forest, alone. You don’t want to meet him. Maybe it’d be a good idea to not go wandering out into the forest alone at night, eh?
After I spoke to that poor salesgirl in Vietnamese, she stared into my eyes as if looking to see what spirit was coming through. “Stared” isn’t the right word. I think she thought of my eyes as windows. She was trying to see what kind of spirit was on the inside, looking out.
There’s no doubt in my mind. The spirit world is alive and well in the Far East.
To be continued…
Featured photo: Eerie photo with an add-in not in the original. Credit: istockphoto/kdshutterman
