Drawing Circles

When I was a kid, my mother kept a few chickens and ducks in the backyard so that we could have them as offerings to our ancestor gods during any important festival. Thus, my mother could help the family to save a substantial amount of money for the purchase of poultry from the market.

Every morning, my mother allowed the ducks to go out and spend the day at a nearby pond. In the evening they would come back without fail to sleep in their own ‘sweet home'.

Once, a big fat white duck did not come home with her companions in the evening. It was reported missing! All of us in the family were worried that the missing duck could have landed itself on somebody else's dinner table.

As there was no provision in the law of the country for us to make a police report for the missing duck, the only option left to us was to consult our Taoist ancestor god.

According to our Taoist ancestor god, the duck would be back within three days if it wasn't already in stomachs of others.

We had waited for a day and yet another day.No news of the duck was heard of!

On the third day, all of us were quite uneasy and moody thinking of our missing duck whose disappearance could have caused us some money if we were to buy it from the market. We started to cast doubts on our Taoist ancestor god for misleading us into raising a false hope. We were quite convinced by now that the duck could have travelled down the gut of some unscrupulous and greedy fellows living in our neighbourhood.

Surprisingly, just before nightfall on the third day, the big fat duck came home waddling in with its buttock swaying from left to right in a manner not unlike the majestic gait of a king.

We were overjoyed to see the duck returning home safe and sound. We truly thanked our Taoist ancestor god for the accuracy of his prediction.

Our Taoist ancestor god was our ‘family consultant' for matters ranging from trivial ones to that of utmost importance. Whatever problems that any of our family members could not solve, or when he could not make up his mind, he would leave it to our Taoist ancestor god to make the final decision. And most of the time our Taoist ancestor god would provide the right solution.

Upon an occasion when I was still a school-going lad, my family encountered a financial crisis. For a number of days we had not made any business at all as not a single customer patronized our shop. All of us in the family were worried that if there was still no business done for another day, we would not have money to buy food on the following day. Everyone in the family was like " ants jumping onto a heated pan" (如热锅上的蚂蚁). We were desperately yearning for an urgent solution to our immediate predicament.

As a last resort, my mother had no choice but to instruct me to burn three joss sticks and praying to our Taoist ancestor god hoping that he would answer our prayers.

To our relief, on that evening a rubber estate smallholder entered our shop to purchase a number of items for use in his estate including a few sheet-metal pails. The purchase had eased our financial constraint for the time being.

According to my mother, our Taoist ancestor before he became a god,had learned the psychic art from his master while he was young. Every day his master would ask him to draw circles as a practice to perfect the art. He drew circles year in and year out for almost three years without acquiring any further knowledge. He was getting bored and disappointed as he doubted he had chosen a wise master. He was planning to leave his master; the sooner the better to look for greener pastures elsewhere.

Incidentally, a group of bandits came up the mountain while his master was away. These bandits had the intention of occupying and making the summit of the mountain as their fortress. They incarcerated our Taoist ancestor temporarily in a storeroom for keeping firewood, with the ulterior motive of making him an errand boy.

In the storeroom, our Taoist ancestor was getting bored as he had nothing to do. To kill the time, he picked up a branch of firewood and started to draw circles on the ground as he normally did for his daily routine. As he was drawing, he was cursing the bandits for incarcerating him in the stuffy storeroom without food or drink.

Minutes slipped by and gave way to hours. After a long time had lapsed when, all of a sudden, our Taoist ancestor heard a commotion outside the storeroom. On peeping through an opening in the wall, he was surprised to see that each and every one of the bandits was tied up with a rope. None of them was able to disentangle himself from his bonds.

Seeing this as a golden opportunity to escape, our Taoist ancestor quickly broke down the door and rushed down the mountain to make a “police report" with the county magistrate to send a troop of soldiers to round up the bandits.

Our Taoist ancestor wasted no time to search for his master and to update him on the whole incident in every minute detail.

After hearing the report from our Taoist ancestor, the master said in no uncertain terms that, " My dear disciple, you have done a splendid job!”

Our Taoist ancestor was rather perplexed by his master's respond. He begged his master for a detailed explanation.

To this, he master said, “For every circle that you had drawn, a rope was wound around a bandit. I guess you must have drawn quite a lot of circles in the storeroom!"

On hearing the explanation from his master, our Taoist ancestor felt somewhat delighted and somewhat ashamed of himself. All this while, he was thinking that the drawing of the circles was merely a waste of time. Little did he know that the circles that he had drawn turned out to become such a powerful weapon to round up the enemy.

From that time onwards our Taoist ancestor made a vow that he would follow his master faithfully and wholeheartedly in pursuing the knowledge of psychic power.