This story happened to me during the lunar seventh month some 5 years ago.

I went over to my (then) ex’s house for dinner at about 6 pm. After dinner, I was bored enough to actually play with my ex’s niece, nephews and a bunch of other kids who were aged around 5 to 8 years old in one of the bedrooms.

I was watching the kids play when suddenly the 5 year old niece (Krystle) tripped over this English baby doll (those with the blinking eyes, eyelashes, ultra creepy kind). Krystle started crying and like most Chinese parents who hit whatever that hurt their precious little child, I picked up the doll and started spanking its bottom repeatedly. It worked and her niece started giggling so I put the doll down on the ground and went to the living room to watch TV.

Suddenly, my ex’s older sister (Brenda) came out from an adjacent room asking which kid was the little prankster who tapped her from behind several times. Upon hearing the commotion, I asked her what happened.

She explained that she was in the bedroom adjacent to the kids’ room where the door was left ajar and the lights were turned off because her fiance was taking a nap. With nothing to do, she was gazing at the mall opposite from their flat through the window when someone tapped her lower back from behind. The first time she ignored it and brushed it off as one of the kids playing a prank on her. The second time, she turned around and at the corner of her eye caught a glimpse of a half naked (top half) kid dashing out of her room. Thinking that the kids were trying to play with her, she looked for them in the other room and was puzzled to find that all of them were fully clothed. She was certain of what she saw but came out of the room puzzled. Who exactly was that little kid who was half naked?

Brenda immediately related this incident to her Aunt who then sought help from a bomoh over the phone.

(This is where the creepy part begins), the bomoh told her Aunt to enter the children’s room and look under the bed. He then insisted that she will find a doll there. Furthermore, he managed to give her one more feature for identification – the color of the doll’s eyes (BLUE).

I accompanied their Aunt to the room and retrieved the doll and to my astonishment, it was the doll that I spanked earlier. At that time, many questions raced through my head. How did the bomoh know that there was a doll under the bed? How did the bomoh also know the color of the doll’s eyes? Why did the kid not look for me instead since I was the one who spanked the doll?

The bomoh immediately instructed their Aunt to leave the doll under a tree in the estate’s park and we did. After this incident, we went out for supper and came back to find the doll already taken from the tree. Some more questions popped out, who in their right frame of mind would dare to pick up such dolls during the night of a lunar seventh month? My mom always emphasized never to pick things up during the seventh month as they may be “dirty”.

I kept quiet about the doll spanking incident for fear of getting a scolding from my ex. Of all the questions that went through my mind that night, only one was answered by another medium who was a friend of my mom. She claimed that I was sort of untouchable (strong Sha Qi) by “dirty” stuff because I have a pair of really thick eyebrows. Glad I have them!