Hungry ghosts

The curb of every pavement in Happy Valley seemed to be on fire, set ablaze by the middle aged ladies who were offering food and burning paper money and joss sticks as they always do on Yue Laan.

It is said that a follower of Sakyamuni went to the underworld to save the soul of his mother, and succeeded in doing so by offering food to the hungry devils in hell. The fifteenth day of the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar is also seen as a Taoist festival, for it is the birthday of the emperor of the underworld. To celebrate his birthday this naughty (or compassionate, depending on your point of view) emperor releases the ghosts of hell to earth so that they may spend time here enjoying the food of mortals. I watched with Liddle Sis as several old couples jostled for space on the corner of the street to place their offerings - huge Navel oranges covered with brightly burning red incense sticks like a porcupine is covered with quills. Some people were being more ambitious - on yet another corner I saw a mother with her child preparing to light the joss sticks in front of a rice bowl.

"I'm hungry," Liddle Sis complained, so we stepped inside a yakitori restaurant to sate our own appetites. When we rolled out at ten o'clock it was magnificent - every corner of Village Road was alight with burning offerings.

Maybe it was because we didn't make any offerings. Maybe it was because we both laughed at some of them - there was one which even contained paper furniture as well as paper money and food. The hungry devils gripped Liddle Sis firmly throughout the night. She spent most of the night regurgitating all the food she'd had in the past 24 hours. We trod along to the hospital in the small hours of the morning, through the sudden rainstorm that had gathered during the night ,with the poor girl doubled up in pain yet still insisting she could walk. There were massive cockroaches everywhere out in search of the scraps of the offerings, so we gingerly retraced our steps back home while avoiding the puddles.

At daybreak, Liddle Sis complained of a fever. We hailed a taxi to the hospital. It was a long while before we came out, this time mercifully with Liddle Sis standing upright and cheerfully taking the lead. As I walked along slowly with her I could see the local cleaning ladies were out in their tidy green uniforms busily scraping away the many black pockmarks left by the hungry ghosts' feast.