Item From the Past: Something I Stole From a Hungry Ghost

I arrived in Hong Kong for the first time in early September 1990, and on the first or maybe second evening, I found this on the sidewalk:


Without planning to, and without ever having heard of it before, I'd arrived at the climax of the Hungry Ghost Festival. Even now I have only the vaguest understanding of the festival -- sometimes simply called the Ghost Festival in English -- in its Chinese context. But it seemed to be fairly important, and involved giving gifts to roaming spirits, especially by burning offerings such as joss paper at spots on the sidewalk. I've read that paper houses and cars and other items are also burned; something about sharing your prosperity with ancestral spirits.

I saw more piles of ash than I did anything else, but somehow or another this note escaped the flames. I couldn't pass up a souvenir like that.

The object itself is in storage with other bits of paper, and I don't fell like digging it out right now, but if I remember right, the King of Hell or somesuch was on the other side. I have to wonder how far $50 million goes in Hell, but I don't doubt that they need money there. Interesting to note, too, that Hell uses dollars, but maybe that's because Hong Kong calls its currency that as well. Such notes printed in Canton might be yuan-denominated.

The upshot is that instead of $50M going to Hell, it went back to Japan with me, and later to North America. So far I haven't met a hungry ghost on a moonless night demanding his money back.