Staring at the ghost moon, the ghost moon will stare at you

At the beginning of August, when I opened Matters, I found that many people were talking about the ghost month. Among them was an article on how to deal with the ghost month by @DivinaWF , a miraculous author I like very much. When I saw the essay writing activity on the website recently, I suddenly realized that Ghost Moon seemed to be a very important event.

The word "Ghost Moon" is familiar but unfamiliar to me. My personal literature reading and field experience revolve around the 15th day of the seventh lunar month, a festival that combines folklore with Buddhism and Taoism. In the area where I grew up, in the entire seventh month of the lunar calendar, only the Qixi Festival can be regarded as a national holiday, and the half of July is limited to the activities of believers in Taoist temples and Buddhist temples, and has almost no place in the broad folk life. After seeing the ghost festival atmosphere on Matters, I checked the information and found out that "Ghost Moon" is a very important folk festival in southern Fujian, Taiwan. Not only the first half of July, but also the first day of the seventh month and the 30th day of the seventh month are very important. There are also some folk customs taboos, such as not moving house, not shaving your head, not going to the water, not going to lush forests, etc. .

It's a pity that this August is the national holiday season in France. I have helped a friend who moved to see the house twice. When the weather is hot, I want to shave my head and roam in the forest by the water. As soon as the ghost moon meets the west, it seems to be dispelled at once. In the sunshine of Provence, the sandy beaches of the Gold Coast, the cabins in the Alps, around the skirts that sway with the music in the August night, they are broken and melted...

For migrants, the folk festivals in their hometown seem like a light bulb when the current is not smooth, and it goes out every now and then, not to mention the new knowledge of foreign customs on the Internet. So I didn't care and continued to live at their rhythm in the disenchanted Western world. But weird things started.

At noon on August 8, I suddenly wanted to eat steamed pork with noodles. I happened to have a bag of seasonings at home, so I washed the meat with my saliva, mixed it well, and put it in an electric pressure cooker. In addition to wanting to eat meat, this day, I especially wanted to ride a bicycle to an open space near my house to see a few trees that were trimmed into triangles. Within half an hour of making the meat, I had the rice ready, the veggies stir-fried, and I waited happily. But after the pressure cooker was out of gas, I suddenly found that the lid of the pot could not be opened. The air was full of aroma, but the steamed pork was out of reach. I was so hungry that my chest was touching my back, so I had to take out the freshly bought seafood from the refrigerator and fry it, but when I tasted it, the seafood turned out to be sour. In desperation, I only ate vegetarian food and rice, inflated the bicycle and was ready to go. But as soon as I pushed the car out of the building door, I found that the tire was out of air, so I folded back and continued to manually inflate. I bought this bike last summer and used it for the first time this year, but the two tires shrunk soon after they were fully charged. I worked hard for a long time, my hands were gone, and I was so tired that I collapsed on the bed, but I still couldn’t stop. I wanted to see those trees, as if there was a force urging me to get up and go to the clearing.

It takes about 40 minutes to walk from home to the tree. At that time, the sun was shining brightly. Apart from cars and motorcycles whizzing by, and three or four men riding bicycles, I was the only pedestrian. I finally saw the open space, but found a large fire truck parked on the road next to the open space. If you get closer, where is that one? There are four fire trucks in total, two to three hundred meters in front and back, six fire trucks. police car. When I got closer, I found a shattered motorcycle on the ground behind the car. Not far away, five or six firefighters and three or four doctors in white coats were pulling a white cloth.

There was a car accident!

Going further, I saw a car parked at the intersection in front of me. Half of it was dented and the glass was shattered. I think it was the motorcycle that hit it first and then disintegrated. Another car was parked at the mouth, and the owner rolled to the side of the road, just under the white cloth. he died.

A cordon was set up at the scene, and two policemen were taking notes for passersby who were still in shock on the roadside. I looked back at those triangular trees. The first time I saw them was during the lockdown last year. At that time, I thought they were so neat and beautiful, but there was an indescribable horror. And a year later, I suddenly had to see it on a whim, still enthusiastic even with the pressure cooker and bike blocking. On the next day's news, I finally saw the time of the crash - exactly half an hour before I arrived at the clearing. That is, if my bike didn't have a temporary leak and I didn't go back to fix it, I'd run into this runaway motorcycle on the road nine times out of ten.

After witnessing the handling of the car accident on the 8th, I was always tired and restless at home on the 9th. On the 10th, my friend invited me to go for a walk in the old city by the river in the city center. I also felt that I should go out to relax. In the afternoon, the river was full of sun, and our face was sore from the sun. We bought a chocolate loaf and stayed under an old bridge. In the shadow of the bridge, we listened to the sound of water, and watched the swans swimming around, blowing The wild winds came and went, and when the sun went down a little, we found an open space on the river bank beside the bridge to sit and chat until ten o'clock in the evening, when the night was dark before returning home.

Under the bridge where we stayed for half the afternoon and the evening, the next morning, a woman's body was found floating in the water. The police finally determined her age and identity: thirty-four, from a mental hospital near my house.

In this way, from August 8th to August 10th, within three days, I, who had always been secluded during the epidemic, went out twice. Every time I went, someone would die, just like the real-life version of "Death is Coming".

When I saw the news of the female corpse today, I felt a chill on my back, and I always felt that I needed an explanation. So I thought of the ghost month people talk about on matter. Do the math, on August 8th, when everything started, it should be the first day of the ghost month, the first day of the seventh lunar month.

I quickly took out a piece of jade that I treasured and put it on my body. In this way, in a disenchanted western country, I, a northerner, finally celebrated the ghost festival in southern Fujian and Taiwan.