Sunday, January 12, 2014

Deadly Brotherhood (死亡兄弟情)


There were sprees of people committed suicide from jumping down from buildings in Penang last year. Perhaps the year of snake is not so auspicious after all, hopefully the year of horse will be better; let’s keep our finger crossed.

 

Every time when I read of cases where people jumped off from building, I thought of a case happened sometime ago to Ah Kow, who was a gangster head in a small village in Perak.

 

One of Ah Kow’s right hand men, Chong died in a gang fight and Ah Kow went to pay Chong a last respect. Well, perhaps Ah Kow wanted to show that he was a caring leader to all his members, or perhaps he just had a cup too many; he hugged the coffin of the deceased and ended up lying on top of it crying and moaning wanting to take Chong’s place. However, Ah Kow was finally pulled down by his fellow members.

 

Three days after Chong’s funeral, Ah Kow started to become crazy, at time murmured yet at time slept through the day only suddenly sat up in bed shouting that he wanted to accompany Chong to the other side. Since the condition of Ah Kow worsened and his mental condition was unstable; his family member brought Ah Kow to a temple nearby.

 

Nevertheless, Ah Kow created havoc in the temple. He attacked the spirit medium and destroyed some of the statues in the temple. There was nothing anyone could do at that time and Ah Kow was finally sent to a mental asylum in Tanjung Rambuta. Ah Kow stayed in the asylum for a month or so and the psychiatrist couldn’t find any problems with Ah Kow and they discharged him.

 

Ah Kow returned home but the peaceful situation only lasts for a week or so. Ah Kow used to wake up in the mid of the night soaked in cold sweat while shouting “go away!” Well, according to Ah Kow’s family; he saw “messengers of death” wanted to bring him to hell.

 

These messengers of death are called “the cow head and horse face” (牛頭馬面) in Taoist believe and they serve under the King of Hell (閻王); whom is the equivalent of Yama in Hinduism.

 

Another week gone by, and one day Ah Kow told his wife he wanted to visit a friend in Penang. His wife thought it was a good idea as perhaps a short trip would be nice get away. So, off Ah Kow went and that was the last time his family saw him alive.

 

News of Ah Kow’s death was informed by police investigators who visited Ah Kow’s family a couple of days later. According to the investigators, Ah Kow has somehow sneaked into a condominium and jumped off from the top floor. They has found no evident of foul play and the case was classified as sudden death.

 

I only learnt about the story from Ah Kow’s wife when I was invited to do a Feng Shui audit on the house. This case is a little bizarre, perhaps it was spiritual and perhaps it was not. Unfortunately, not all cases involved spirits can be solved in time; or at all.