The Last Of SEA Magicians

I was having tea with one of my seniors from Singapore before his migration to Canada in an afternoon. Let me simply call him Mr. Jack for short. Mr. Jack is about 70 years old now and he has spent the whole life and hundreds thousands of Sing Dollars to search for rare magical items and manuscripts just because the love of magic. While Jack concentrated on Thai magic solely; I spent most of my time collecting Tibetan artifacts. Whatever our interests were, we only realized that we have spent the equal amount of money on the study of the magic alone.

 

So now Jack’s main problem is with his huge magic collections: antique lersi statues, award winning Thai amulets, boxes and boxes of Thai magic manuals etc. Jack asked me to take over his collections but I could only smiled bitterly and shake my head: I have same problems of my own. The questions where would I keep all those sacred items? Not to mention that I also exhausted money myself due to my previous collections. Like Jack, I have also spent the last 25 years travelling all over, first to Tibet, Indochina, Egypt, Europe etc to collect manuals and artifacts.

 

I suggested to Mr. Jack that he should give his collections to his son, friends or disciples or just sell them to antique shop. Jack stared at me for a while and replied: “those things won’t worth a dime in the open market!” He added further that people now have no patient and the money to keep those holy stuffs and to learn magic. I can only keep my mouth shut, after all his entire problem is exactly my problem, so what can I say further.

 

After silently sipping the tea and staring at the street scenery for quite a while, so Mr. Jack broke silence: “I want you to do me a favor, give all my stuffs a ‘sea burial’ before my departure.  I smiled and looked at Jack and said to him, “Your mind is same with what I am thinking; I will also give all my stuffs a ‘sea burial’ once the time is right too!”

 

I helped Jack to dispose his once precious belongings one by one until I saw to Jack’s departure in Penang International Airport to his new home overseas with his son. That was the last of a SEA magician I thought.