Sat, Aug 24, 2002 page16

• Paying off the dead

  With ghost month in full swing, many turn their minds to the fate of the dead. 'Baby spirits' -- the ghosts of children who died before birth -- bring in a healthy income for temples, ossuaries and others working from shrines or over the Internet

  • By Emily Wu / CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  Ms Wang, like many women in Taiwan, had not hesitated to resort to abortion when faced with an unwanted pregnancy. This did not mean she felt good about it. She called up Kuo Su-ching (郭素清), a woman who claims to be a living Buddha and who has close relations with various members of Taiwan's complex pantheon of gods, including Yama, king of the dead. She wanted to know how to appease the spirits of the dead "baby spirits" that were haunting her.

  She had first heard about Kuo after reading of her powers in a magazine. Kuo spoke on the phone, sitting in a room with many images of her friends -- images of gods and spirits. She asked Wang's full name, date of birth, home address, and the number of times she'd had an abortion. "Three? That's okay. But you've never prayed and helped them to `pass on,' correct?"

  The Chinese term she used is chao tu, which refers to helping the spirits of the dead pass through purgatory and continue through the cycle of reincarnation.

  

  Candles burn at a temple honoring the souls of the dead in Taipei.

  PHOTO: EMILY WU, TAIPEI TIMES

  Even as she spoke on the phone, Kuo was possessed by the spirit of Bodhidharma, who she later said spoke Hindi. She jumped in and out of her possessed state, first speaking in tongues, then translating to her interlocutor.

  "He sees a girl behind you. There is definitely a baby spirit near you. She is very young, very shy, and very pretty. She looks like you," she said.

  "It is crucial for you to come here and help the `baby spirits' pass on, otherwise you will have bad health and bad concentration in anything you do," she said.

  Kuo, who presides at the Wufu Chiensuei Temple in Sanchung (五府千歲宮), said about 10 women each day come to her for help. Ghost month (which reached its midpoint yesterday in the Chungyuan Festival) is especially busy. Kuo welcomes each of visitor warmly and with great sympathy -- as long as the full NT$3,000 service fee is paid.

  It is no surprise that some women turn to religion after the trauma of abortion. According to Kuo, the most common request is that they no longer be haunted by the `baby spirits.'

  According to the Web site of the Jiayun Ossuary (嘉雲寶塔) -- a commercial establishment in which the ashes of the dead can be interred and the spirits given proper care -- unborn babies that die become trapped in between a stage of life and death, where "the sun doesn't shine. When it gets cold and rainy, babies stick together and seek warmth from each other." Duration in this place is not definite and depends on the care and support -- often financial -- their mothers provide.

  This is part of a more general belief in Chinese superstition that if the spirits of the dead are not cared for, they will stay among the living and cause accidents and misfortunes by way of revenge. This system of belief puts considerable pressure on women who have opted to terminate pregnancies.

  "Should anything unfortunate happen to these women, they become uneasy and suspicious about being clung to by baby spirits," said a temple worker surnamed Lin from the Linchi Temple (臨濟寺), a Buddhist temple in Taipei, explained. According to Lin, of the thousands who attend a typical chao tu ceremony, there will usually be a 100 or so who are there specifically to help the spirits of the unborn children pass on.

  Specific rituals are required, with a slip of yellow paper bearing the mothers name and the abjuration that Buddha help "aborted children, still birth children, children who died in the womb move onto their next life." While most Buddhist temples do not impose a fee for this service, they do encourage donations.

  Ritual practice for the spirits of the dead is anything but consistent, with a host of superstitions and theories about what is correct procedure. Even Lin, a lay worker at Linchi Temple, sees the process in largely psychological terms. "After a miscarriage or an abortion, if the woman feels guilty about the death of her child, she will begin to suspect baby spirits," he said. He added that the process is probably still a good thing for these women.

  Wang Shu-fen (王淑芬), a social worker who works with unmarried women with abortion at The Garden of Hope (麗星基金會), a foundation dedicated to single mothers, agrees. "Although the superstition is not mainstream, if helping baby spirits contributes to the wellbeing of the women, it can also be used as a form of counseling," Wang said.

  Although Wang and her colleagues do not promote such practice, they do not oppose if women desire it. Mrs Chen, a 48-year-old mother of two, expressed the other side of the argument.

  "This is wrong," she said angrily. "The concept of redemption in this sense is unacceptable. You can't just burn some incense after you have killed somebody and expect everything to be fine again! Where is your morality?"

  Chen, who has herself had an abortion due to economic concerns, says that although 20 years have passed, it is hard not to think about it. "You shouldn't merely visit the temple and expect to be forgiven," she said. But her husband thinks there is nothing wrong with "setting up a security net for the guilt and fear these women face," he said.

  Lin-lin, a 22-year-old travel agent, sometimes feels the need of such a safety net, although not particularly religious. When speaking about her first aborted child, she admitted that, "I just feel so guilty.

  "Even today, five years after my first abortion, I have nightmares about my first dead child," Lin-lin said. "Sometimes I wake up in the morning feeling as if there is a kid sleeping beside me," she continued.

  Lin-lin has never participated in a chao tu ceremony for the spirits of either of the two "children" she aborted. Going to a temple is too much time and trouble.

  Several Taiwanese Web sites have solved this problem by creating online temples. For just NT$1,000, virtual shrines can be created on the site. On one such site, the "baby spirit" has all he will need: dinning hall, bathtub, fruit stands, and a candy store. Below, are a mailbox to which the mother can write letters to and a bucket where she can burn ghost money for him to buy things.

  Kuo, when she heard of Web sites such as this one, said it was no more than a scam. But for the busy would-be mother in today's networked world, isn't it just a way of burning ghost money without any smoke?
• Most Popular

  • 1

    Military on alert after 2 Chinese warships spotted

  • 2

    China denounces Japan, EU over South China Sea

  • 3

    Magnitude 6.1 quake strikes off northeast coast

  • 4

    MOFA blasts Beijing after Zambia scraps RightsCon

  • 5

    China rethinking invasion plans: expert