in her room with
the door closed when all the lights in the apartment started to
flicker and then went out. The boy helped them to find the fuse box
and change the master fuse, then left for the night. The next week
when he came back the same thing happened. Two weeks later when he
tried to kiss the girl in her room the light bulb exploded and a
glass shard cut his arm. All of the roommates were starting to get
scared and talking about ghosts. One of the girls said she had an
aunt who was a fortune teller and could see spirits, so they asked
her to come over and tell them what to do. After the aunt asked for
a fee (because the third eye needs some money to lubricate its
vision), she told them that as soon as she had walked into the
apartment she saw the ghost of a teenage girl. The girl watched
them all talk, and whenever one of them spoke about a boy the
ghost's fists would clench and she looked angry. The aunt told them
she would do some research and get back to them. She came back a
few days later and said that a girl had committed suicide in their
house 20 years earlier after her boyfriend had broken up with her.
The aunt's final advice? Don't bring any boys home and the ghost
would be happy to share the house with them. The rest of the time
my student was in university they didn't bring any boys into the
house and there were no more problems with the ghost.
What a lame story, right? Spurned ghost on
an eternal quest to keep female students chaste. Not exactly the
stuff of horror novels.
Some other students told stories of seeing
lights or waking up in the night and not being able to move. Most
stories ended with an appeal to Buddha and an eventual release. For
the most part they seemed like poorly strung together sets of
coincidences, but the students believed them.
2
Around that time I opened a small school. I
rented a spot in an office building and had a couple of classes of
elementary school children that would come and learn English after
school. It didn't take long before I had enough students that I
needed an assistant to help me with paperwork and coordinating with
parents. Brenda was recommended to me by a friend and we started to
go out to dinner a few times a week not long after.
I was living in a cheap apartment not far
from a hospital back then. When I told people how low the rent was
they always seemed amazed that I had found such a great deal and
asked me how much the roof leaked. (The roof was fine.) I wasn't
spending much time there because of my growing classes and my time
out with Brenda. We started to date seriously, going out every
night after class and spending weekends together at her place. (See
mom, sowing my wild oats!) Months went by and I was happy with the
relationship, happy with the classes and happy with the money we
were making. We started to talk about getting married, but weren't
in any rush.
One weekend the water in her building was
out and so we decided to spend Saturday night at my apartment
watching a movie. We were cuddling on the couch, enjoying the movie
when the light and fan over the stove suddenly turned on. I got up
to see what the problem was and found that both of the switches had
been pressed on. Strange. I went back to the couch and was about to
sit down when the both came back on again. The switches I had just
turned off had been turned on again. My student's story of
exploding light bulbs jumped into my mind, and I firmly tossed it
out with a good laugh. I unplugged the electrical chord and we
enjoyed the rest of the movie uninterrupted.
That night as I lay in the dark waiting for
sleep to come I thought about ghosts. Most of what I thought made
me laugh, visions of Casper floating in my kitchen, struggling to
get the button pressed as beads of translucent sweat ran down his
cheeks. The light and fan were probably made in China, nothing else
that the landlord furnished the apartment with was good quality, I
was sure the kitchen stuff had to be cheap as
the door closed when all the lights in the apartment started to
flicker and then went out. The boy helped them to find the fuse box
and change the master fuse, then left for the night. The next week
when he came back the same thing happened. Two weeks later when he
tried to kiss the girl in her room the light bulb exploded and a
glass shard cut his arm. All of the roommates were starting to get
scared and talking about ghosts. One of the girls said she had an
aunt who was a fortune teller and could see spirits, so they asked
her to come over and tell them what to do. After the aunt asked for
a fee (because the third eye needs some money to lubricate its
vision), she told them that as soon as she had walked into the
apartment she saw the ghost of a teenage girl. The girl watched
them all talk, and whenever one of them spoke about a boy the
ghost's fists would clench and she looked angry. The aunt told them
she would do some research and get back to them. She came back a
few days later and said that a girl had committed suicide in their
house 20 years earlier after her boyfriend had broken up with her.
The aunt's final advice? Don't bring any boys home and the ghost
would be happy to share the house with them. The rest of the time
my student was in university they didn't bring any boys into the
house and there were no more problems with the ghost.
What a lame story, right? Spurned ghost on
an eternal quest to keep female students chaste. Not exactly the
stuff of horror novels.
Some other students told stories of seeing
lights or waking up in the night and not being able to move. Most
stories ended with an appeal to Buddha and an eventual release. For
the most part they seemed like poorly strung together sets of
coincidences, but the students believed them.
2
Around that time I opened a small school. I
rented a spot in an office building and had a couple of classes of
elementary school children that would come and learn English after
school. It didn't take long before I had enough students that I
needed an assistant to help me with paperwork and coordinating with
parents. Brenda was recommended to me by a friend and we started to
go out to dinner a few times a week not long after.
I was living in a cheap apartment not far
from a hospital back then. When I told people how low the rent was
they always seemed amazed that I had found such a great deal and
asked me how much the roof leaked. (The roof was fine.) I wasn't
spending much time there because of my growing classes and my time
out with Brenda. We started to date seriously, going out every
night after class and spending weekends together at her place. (See
mom, sowing my wild oats!) Months went by and I was happy with the
relationship, happy with the classes and happy with the money we
were making. We started to talk about getting married, but weren't
in any rush.
One weekend the water in her building was
out and so we decided to spend Saturday night at my apartment
watching a movie. We were cuddling on the couch, enjoying the movie
when the light and fan over the stove suddenly turned on. I got up
to see what the problem was and found that both of the switches had
been pressed on. Strange. I went back to the couch and was about to
sit down when the both came back on again. The switches I had just
turned off had been turned on again. My student's story of
exploding light bulbs jumped into my mind, and I firmly tossed it
out with a good laugh. I unplugged the electrical chord and we
enjoyed the rest of the movie uninterrupted.
That night as I lay in the dark waiting for
sleep to come I thought about ghosts. Most of what I thought made
me laugh, visions of Casper floating in my kitchen, struggling to
get the button pressed as beads of translucent sweat ran down his
cheeks. The light and fan were probably made in China, nothing else
that the landlord furnished the apartment with was good quality, I
was sure the kitchen stuff had to be cheap as
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