2002-09-14 - 9:48 p.m.

My non-Chinese friend asked me the other day: 'What is a Chinese Hell like? You guys get to roam on earth once a year during the 7th month?'

It's similar to being trapped in the Singaporean education system for all perpetuity, breaking ocassionally for a stint of reservist training (the equivalent of progressing to another level in Hades)... and 7th month will be the respite of a long weekend.

To enlighten my non-Chinese friends:

During Chinese funerals, there'll be a rite where a toaist priest will chant in front of a particularly fightening embroidered painting of the Chinese Hades. It was through fear that I learnt to be respectful, not to tell lies and to be the good boy which I'm not.

Har Par Villa has a rather morbid depiction of what I'm trying to convey to you readers, in the form of figurines half the size of an average human. The Western doomsday notion of halos, winged angels and harp music seems like Disneyland in comparison.

The general idea that governs the Chinese Hell is reciprocating punishment: if you are an Ah Siah Kia who shouts at your maid to clean the windoms from the 57th storey of your penthouse, then in hell, Rose will be asking you to do the same... I'm not an expert on cross-jurisdiction matters of the afterlife, so I may have misinterpreted how a Filipino Hell works along with a Chinese Hell.

Basically the soul will pass through 18 tribunals of hell. ie,

1) Anorexic girls who never finish their food are ground up into mince meat using ancient stone contraptions.

2) Perverts who steal lingerie in halls of residences will be sawn into half using laces of steel.

3) Nagging mothers will have their tongues yanked out and sliced to be made into herbal soups.

4) Army regulars will be roasted into Peking Duck (I mean human) before being fried in sesame oil with ginger.

... and so on...

Somehow, the rules are strict. Only the virtuous will pass through the tribunals unscathed and cross the silver and jade bridge into another life... (may the Chinese Heritage Centre spare me, I'm writing from the cloudy knowledge of my culture)

But the 7th month is when Chinese - the departed souls, not the businessmen selling 7th month goods - get to exhibit their entrepreneural skills; they get to receive offerings and get to bribe their way out. All is not lost, reformed souls who suffered sufficiently or bribed their way through will get to the holy grail of another life on earth.

Now we know why so many Chinese converted to Christianity. Please forgive me if I blesphemed, I wrote this to educate my friend. Not as an academic research into Chinese theology.

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