The Dharma Force

Monster in the Garden

Another story from the Chinese Ghosts book. (Actually, I have no idea how to translate the title of the book. If translated word by word, the title is Records of Strange Things From the House Named Talk . How is that for a weird title? Or I'd like to translate it as The Talk House Presents: Believe it Or Not)

Anyway, the title of the story is "Monster in the Garden".

There was a famous scholar at the end of the Ming Dynasty. He converted himself into a Taoist at the beginning of Qing Dynasty.

(When the tribe Manchu of North conquered China. They officially ended the Ming Dynasty and started the Qing Dynasty. As the first order of business, they ordered all the people of China to shave half of their head, and to made a pigtail out of the rest of their hair. The only exception will be women, the dead, Taoist, or Buddhist Monks. So a lot of the educated Chinese converted themselves into either Taoists or Monks. That circumvented the order, but that also meant they would never have offspring. It was a cruel, savage but effective rule to root out all resistance movements. But that also brought about the misconception that all Chinese had half shaven head and pigtails. It was so funny to see some of these TV shows or movies, like "Stargate SG-1" in which they portrayed the ancient Chinese sage King Yu as dressed in the Qing Dynasty costume. This is like having George Washington dressed as the Terminator.)

Anyway, this scholar, or now I should call him the Taoist read a few books, and learned a few tricks. Now he was famous as a ghost buster and demon slayer.

So one day, he was laying back and having a Margarita. (Hey, if they can have Yu dressed in pigtail, my Taoist can drink a Margarita, with a little umbrella, no less.) An invitation came for him. A family who he did not know invited him to a feast.

Now the guy did not want to go. He was chilling and relaxing, but the servant who delivered the invitation insisted.

So finally, the guy said, "Oh, alright, if your master really wanted to see me that bad, let's go."

Then they got out of the house, and the Taoist rode his horse, and they went to the home of the master.

The master was very polite. He went to the door to welcome the Taoist. He was invited in, and the feast began in his honor.

Now, the Taoist was curious. He asked the master why did he invited him here?

The master did not answer. He just invited the Taoist to eat more.

The conversation went like:

"So, Mister, why did you invite me here?"
"OH, Oh, have you tried the General's Chicken here? It is quite good."
"Why thank you! But you still have not answered ..."
"Hey, your cup is empty. Come on, have a bit of this very fine Whisky here."

So, by the end of the feast, the Taoist is very drunk, and he still had no clue as to why he was invited.

As all drunks did, the Taoist drifted into sleep.

By midnight, he was awoke with a strange sound. He rubbed his eyes, and looked around. He was still in the dining hall. The table was not cleared, the feast, or whatever remained of it was still there. And nobody besides him was there.

That was very strange indeed. But the master did cover him with a cotton quilt, did not want him to catch cold.

Then the strange sound happened again. This time, it was near. It sounded like an elephant was doing a ballet dance. The whole room shook.

The Taoist got scared. And rightly so, if you have ever seen as horror movie. But the guy was smart, instead of like all those stupid characters in the movie, who went to the door to investigate, and got sliced and diced, the smart Taoist hid inside of the quilt.

OK. He was not that smart after all. He was more like a scared little boy, shaking inside of the quilt. But like a brave boy, he peeked out of the quilt.

The sound came near, near, near, NEAR, NEAR, NEAR ! Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, BOOM! Just like in the movie "Jurassic Park".

A monster appeared at the door. The book described him as with beastly head, human torso, and the whole body was covered in fur.

Ok, now I am no expert, but this author is either describing a "Big Foot" or "Beast" in "X-Men III The Last Stand". Personally, I think it is a toss up.

The monster came into the door, stuff around and he started to eat the remain of the feast.

He ate the General's Chicken, Mongolian Beef. Fried Rice. (Since we are into stereotype here, we might as well go all the way.) Yummy!

After the big dude finished his meal. He noticed something strange. A self-vibrate quilt in the daybed.

Wow, he thought, a new invention! What these smart humans will think of next.

So he went over there to take a closer look.

Of course, all of my readers here knew it was not a self-vibrate quilt, it was our Taoist shaking under it.

As the monster got near, the Taoist jumped up, threw the quilt over the big guy, and he ran out of the dining hall.

He could hear the angry roar sounded behind him, and he was chased by the monster.

He ran out of the room, and he screamed for help. Nobody answered. He ran to the front door, it was locked. He ran to the back door, it was locked.

Now my readers would have asked the very intelligent question of if the doors were locked, how did the monster got in? Now the book did not mention anything on that part. But I knew from a good authority (My head) that the monster jumped in.

So the Taoist could not get out. He finally climbed over a wall, and found himself in the stable. (Now you understand. If this dude could scale the wall, it was not that difficult for the other bigger dude.)

The next day, the family returned. The master unlocked the door, and found the home was empty. They panicked and searched everywhere. The noise woke up the Taoist who had slept in the stable the rest of the night.

Seeing the very smelly Taoist, the family gave up a sign of relief. The Taoist questioned the master.

"What in the name of the General's Fine Chicken, is going on here? Why did you lock me in there and left?"

The master apologized, and said that there was a monster in his garden. (Duh!) So he wanted to get rid of it. He thought of the Taoist, but he was concerned that the Taoist may not want to come to face the monster. (Duh! Duh!) So in his infinite wisdom, he cooked up this scheme of inviting the Taoist to a feast, and then got him drunk, and left him there with the Monster.

Duh! Duh! Duh! Duh! Duh! This guy definitely need to have his head examined.

The Taoist of course was through the roof. "What the heck in your pea-sized brain were you thinking? First of all, my speciality is in expelling ghosts, not so much with demons or monsters. Secondly, I have a weapon in my saddle which I could use against the monster, if you had ever told me the truth!"

The owner apologized again, and the Taoist went home to take a shower.

But the funny part of the story was that, after that fiasco, the monster never came back. It turned out that he was so surprised with the self-catching quilt that he ran out of the room after the Taoist, not to chasing him, but to run away from the quilt.

The thing about this book was that it was not supposed to be fiction stories. The author was trying to record down what he had heard in the tea salon over the years. Most of stories had names who were like the author's second cousin's friend's neighbor.

So the chances are there was an unlucky Taoist who went into that idiot's home and faced a bigfoot, and they kind of scared each other pretty good!