***

Two weeks have passed since our first night in Singapore, but all three of us have had the hardest time getting over jet lag. Mama has declared a strike on cooking; she thinks there’s too much good food here that we still need to try. The outdoor hawker center is alive even as late as twelve o’clock in the morning, its lines of red and yellow plastic chairs packed with whole families, young children included, eating a full meal well past what my bedtime was at their age.

“They call it supper,” Dad says as we walk up the stairs to the hawker center, much later than our usual dinnertime. “Singaporeans eat four meals a day, it’s normal for them.”

 

We’ve learned to eat family style, each choosing a couple of dishes to gather in middle of the table, crossing our utensils over each other’s arms to reach for more chicken curry, hor fun, oyster omelet, satay, nasi lemak, or roti prata. I study people nearby and find that everyone is using a fork and a spoon instead of a fork and a knife. They scrape their plates with a fork in one hand and use a spoon to cut meat in the other, never putting either one down. The air swirls with the whiny sound of Singlish, the local language based in English and mixed with bits of Malay, Tamil, and Chinese dialects. I slurp down my sugar cane juice and take in the boundaries of my new home, trying to piece together the full picture, still feeling like a tourist whizzing past at break-neck speed.

“Aren’t those the twins your age from next door?” Dad asks, tapping my shoulder.

“I think so,” I say. “I met them at the pool last weekend. We only talked for a little while before their mom came running, screaming at them in Mandarin. They rushed out of the pool, trying to explain that they had to be back inside before sunset or they’d get eaten.”

“August is the beginning of the Hungry Ghost Festival,” Dad says. “I’m reading about it in a book I got from the library. Buddhists believe that during this month the gates of Hell are opened and the dead are allowed to roam the earth at night as ghosts. The ghosts are hungry and are known to eat unattended children.”

“So we have the Holy Ghost and they have the hungry ghosts,” Mama says.

I want to ask who decides what makes some ghosts hungry and others holy. I stuff my mouth with chicken rice instead, avoiding a comparative lecture on religion and any reminder of why we’re here to “save the lost.”

***

The next morning I wake to the smell of something burning. I run downstairs to check if the smell is coming from the kitchen. No one else is awake yet and the kitchen is empty, but the window is open. A breeze is wafting the smell from outside. I go out onto the back patio and see the twins from next door, Fan and Jean, throwing pieces of colored paper that look like giant slips of Monopoly money into a red receptacle the size of a small trashcan. Through holes on the side of the burning receptacle, I can see a flame turning the colored paper money into grey ash that floats up before falling to the ground like wispy snowflakes.

“Sadie,” Jean says, waving with a piece of paper, “We’re burning hell money.”

“It helps our ancestors buy water bottles and start air-conditioning businesses in hell,” Fan says.
“Tomorrow we’ll buy a paper car to burn for our wài gong. He cannot walk, so he needs the car to get around better,” Jean explains.

“Are you going to burn all that food too?” I ask, pointing to a table full of cookies, oranges, Milo, Kopitiam bread, rice cakes, and suckling pig.

“No, lah” Fan says, “That’s offering for hungry ghosts. We have to set up before dark, so they get full on the food and don’t come eat us later.”

The charred money twirls around me, bits of the ash sticking to my clothes and getting caught in my eyelashes.

“Can I burn a piece of hell money?” I ask.

Fan and Jean look at each other, and then through their kitchen window to see if anyone is watching.

“Mama probably say that if she burns the money, wài gong cannot get because she’s not his relative.” Fan says to Jean.

“What if she burns one only? Give her a small bill, can?” Jean says. They nod to each other, checking the window one more time.

“Lai, lai,” they both say, motioning for me to come.

I hop up onto the half-wall that separates our two back patios, and make the small jump down to their side. Jean hands me a $5 piece of hell money and points out the face on the bill, telling me that he, the God of Fortune, ensures the money’s passage to its rightful recipient.