Surfing midnight with the ghosts

Last night was the final night of the Hungry Ghost Festival. The area where I live was aglow with the flare of joss sticks jammed into cracks in the pavement, or in the borders of gardens. Anywhere with some kind of significance had people burning big piles of Hell Money on the street, and in the housing estates the old oil drums had been brought out to act as furnaces.

I  met my friends from Chin Woo, and watched as they burned Hell Money as offerings to the spirits. As I’m not a member, I didn’t take part, but that didn’t stop a certain person from being rude. Well, it didn’t matter, and like I say, the overwhelming majority of Chin Woo people are really cool Quite a few people took photos, and I also took some shots at one fire where only my friends were present. One thing people like to do is to study the pictures to see whether the flames form observable shapes; quite a few seemed to show lions, dragons, and the like, as well as some human shapes. I got one shot  that seemed to show “snakes” (as one friend put it) looping around the bystanders…

Anyway, tonight I’m off to Wales. I was saying to one of my friends last night, it’s a good thing I’m not superstitious… the ghosts were out in force last night, and – let’s face it – today is a pretty ghost-ridden date to be flying. I take off late at night, and arrive in Europe early in the morning, so my flight is going to be close to the date line all the way… surfing midnight with the ghosts, yay!