Taboos of Life and Death

In the countryside, the elders always believed that people possessed souls, and that when the soul was startled or struck, it could leave the body. They called this phenomenon "losing one's soul."

They also said that if someone lost their soul, they would feel weak all over, restless in sleep, and that neither medicine nor injections would be effective. To recover, one had to call the soul back—a process known as soul-calling.

The first time I lost my soul was when I was ten years old.

It was near dusk when, for reasons I couldn't explain, I felt weak throughout my body, had no appetite, and was overwhelmed by a vague discomfort. Around nine o'clock, I started vomiting and had diarrhea. My mother took me to the village clinic for injections, but after returning home, I drifted in and out of uneasy sleep, as if a heavy stone was pressing on me, shivering with cold and misery.

The next morning, my mother took me to the city hospital for tests. Although I was clearly weak and trembling, the doctor said he didn't know what was wrong with me and that further observation and tests were needed.

By the afternoon, seeing that the injections and medicine had no effect, my mother hastily picked me up and rushed home, then went to the old house to fetch my grandmother.

My grandmother was a spirit-matriarch—what people called a village medium. She dealt with divination and fortune-telling, and preferred solitude, living alone in the old house.

When my grandmother entered and saw me, she immediately said, "Ch