3/24 10:48am (train to Chongqing): Saturday morning we took the high speed train to Guiyang. It’s my second time here. The last time I was here was when I was in 1st grade when we went to see some distant relatives. This was a spontaneous trip because we have a distant cousin (probably only 13) who was apparently the chosen Daoist master after her dad passed away. She was able to see her dad, see and talk to spirits, and do some fortune telling but she’s still under a daoist master so learning everything. Big aunt, second aunt, Anqi, Xingying, and I were all intrigued by this girl’s ability, about how prevalent spirituality is in China, and especially to see with our own eyes to believe. We saw photos of her forearms which had welts that appears and disappears, especially having the word 死 (death). When we arrived in Guiyang there were a ton of stairs to take and I might have sprained my wrist because it was extremely sore at bedtime. Thank god it’s much better now after rest.
When we arrived at my relatives’ house, I realized I’ve seen the girl’s mom before when my mom told me last year about how her husband passed away suddenly from stage 4 cancer. She seems to be a very honest and generous person and was also very skeptical about her daughter’s spiritual awakening. My uncle still doesn’t believe in her abilities and laughs about it but supports the family nonetheless. We had a 9 course meal – which was unexpected! They also had a dog (terrier with long lashes) and a Maine coon cat that was the softest and docile cat ever. You can pick it up and it will just be like a pillow and stay there. They two also fought all the time. The tiny terrier killed a cat his own size in the past when they got a new pet cat – this goes to show that even if you are physically small, if you are fierce internally, it will keep you safe and take you far, and vice versa. You have to know your worth.
After lunch we sat around and chatted. I can tell why big aunt is successful, she lead the conversation and talked at a medium slow speed, soaking in all attention. She was also the one who suggested that I get checked by the girl because my body has been very weak and sick for more than a year now – bad chronic cough, 鼻炎, soft voice, no energy, plus two nosebleeds on this trip so far… She lit two candles, gave me three incense to burn, wash my hands, bow three times and put it on the alter in their home. She then had me sit on a bench while she used cut strips of paper money that’s usually used for remembering deceased people, and brushed it around me. All of the strips fell to the ground meaning I’m not clean. She proceeded to burn the paper strips in a pot and looked at the burned results / communicated with spirits quietly. Then she told us that there was a foreigner ghost / spirit of a murdered person who had attached to me and have been following me for 4 months and that I contracted the ghost while walking outside at night. For months ago would’ve been December and that was when I got my car and commuted to the office by bus and car and parked on the streets to go home at night. Seattle is also a very crime ridden city and I won’t be surprised by how many people died of unnatural causes each day. I did not tell her any of this beforehand. After her “diagnosis” she told me to just sit tight and the spirits will do their things and leave.
A couple days ago in Tongren when we went to pay respects to my grandparents (挂舍) , my cousins were telling us about how it’s easy for people with my Yin energy to attract unfriendly ghosts and spirits. And how usually on burial sites or old execution sites where yin energy is extremely strong, they usually build schools there to suppress the large amount of yin energy with the yang energy of students. Big aunt said I need to do moxibustion, lots of workouts, get sunshine, eat warm foods, and in general get more Yang energy to be stronger.
My second aunt is full of Yang energy – she talks to strangers as if they’re old friends, can chat for hours, says what’s on her mind and often is the one addressing the elephant in the room, super funny and her two dimples are always present from laughing, very loud, and climbed the Fanjing mountain faster than me and my big aunt. The daoist girl master also doesn’t know my aunt and doesn’t know her personality that well but after performing her ritual, she said she has a snake spirit around her shoulders as well as a turtle deity protecting her. The weird thing is, my aunt use to pick wild veggies on the mountains and may have stepped on a snake egg before. She also has a ton of turtle pets at home, but the girl doesn’t know this. My aunts’ daughter also has a bird deity protecting her as well. But from the outside she is extremely skinny, petite, and pale but her internal energy is crazy – can talk for hours and can get very loud and loves to argue and fight.
So I’m not sure what to do – seems like there is a grain of truth to this. It’s like some people believing in Jesus because a miracle happened to them, even though no one has actually seen Jesus or know for certain he exists. If I believe this, then I have to accept the fact that a murdered person’s spirit had attached to me for so long to suck my energy and that there could be many more spirits out there in the States so I will likely get attached to another evil spirit due to my poor energy. I should consider living in Hawaii for a while to heal my body – sun, salt water, hikes, and healthy food.
The girl isn’t a loud and attention seeking person. She’s quite reserved but seeks love. For example, she made a lot of effort trying to please us even though she is very shy – she asked 姐姐你喜欢雪糕吗？ (she asked me if I liked ice cream and she bought a ton of flavors for us to try) and even got us her favorite mystery box dolls. She really is just a regular young teenager also super into manga, cute figurines, and legos (she has a huge collection at home displayed on her wall and her room is extremely neat) and also struggling with being accepted in school especially because of her situation. I can imagine her classmates and teachers are all scared of her (even I was super scared) so she doesn’t have very many friends anymore. If I understood her in Chinese correctly, she mentioned that she’s not in regular school anymore after they saw her patterned / text welts appear and disappear before their eyes. Her mom was skeptical about her abilities and thought it was due to depression or schizophrenia from her dad’s sudden passing, but doctors weren’t able to diagnose her and daoist masters took her in after seeing her abilities. She said she was not sad at her dad’s funeral because her dad was there with her, in spirit and talking to her. However she is not allowed to talk to him because it was a funeral for him. This whole thing is wild.
Last night we stayed at their home, in fact my aunt and I slept in her room. I actually slept quite soundly last night and did not wake up once, whereas in Tongren I woke up every night at least once.
We also went to see our distant grand uncles and grand aunts. They’re all nice but one grand uncle was a little creepy and kept wanting to take photos to show my mom how much Guiyang has changed. We walked around and saw this White Castle that no one can enter or knows who lives in it. Right outside is THE LARGEST gathering of young adults on dates, walking off their dinners, playing, etc. I also saw largest square dance of young people with young people music. Most people were watching the internet celebs dance while live streaming. Everyone was smoking and my cough got bad again. Afterwards we went to chat with my other uncle who is very nice and was the one who didn’t believe in the superpowers of my cousin, has a very pretty wife, a son with Down syndrome, and gorgeous daughter. My second aunt could talk for ages and it was so late before we went back. I was kind of sad to see the son sit so close to the TV and watch shows similar to Cocomelon and not go to bed around 11pm. However, I also understand the parents must be tired from trying to lecture their kid constantly every day for the past 8 years. The parents are pretty strict and perhaps it’s because they had guests over.
China is more complex than I thought. Each time I come here, each time my perspective of the country changes and evolves. There so much more that I don’t know and when I get back to Seattle I’m going to try my best to understand it more, especially politics, domestic and foreign initiatives, laws, regulations, history, culture, daoism, education system, consumerism, and its impact on people’s health, wellbeing, and the impact on the environment. There’s so much work to be done in terms of cleaning the air, streets, waters. My Guiyang cousin also told us about how middle schoolers are smoking cigs, dating (heterosexual and homosexual alike), gangs, bullying, etc. the opposite of what Asians are like in America. It definitely has a LOT to do with the lack of education in these 3rd and 4th tier cities.
Now I’m on my way to Chongqing on the high speed train. Wish I got to hug my cousins and aunt before I left.
#china #guiyang
Adventures with Isabel 