新年快樂! Welcome the Year of the Rabbit

After university I lived in Taiwan for about a year. One of the best experiences ever and I kick myself pretty much weekly for ever leaving. In honor of Chinese New Year today I want to recount one of my favorite stories from from that year.

Everyone goes home for Chinese New Year to celebrate with their families. Even if you are second generation born in Taipei you go back to where your family is from. This means that Taipei was pretty darn empty over New Year when I was there. It felt very creepy, kind of like a war zone after the army has left; largely empty but with bursts of fire crackers. I lucked out though, the weather turned pretty warm so I could at least enjoy walking around the eerie city.

New Year night I was the only one home. One of my roommates had gone south to the beach and the other was out with friends. I was in my room reading, reveling in the fact that I could stay up late since there was no school the next day. At about one or two AM I heard this really odd noise; like the sound a towel makes if you rip it apart and tear the threads from one another. I paused, cocked my head to the side, and though "Huh, that's weird", then went back to my book. A few seconds later I heard it again. This time I put down my book and swung my legs over the bed only to see...

A GIANT bubble in my tile floor. A giant bubble with a pulsating center. It pulsated.

I completely lost my head and ran out of the room to take refuge on the couch in the living room. Stupidly forgetting to shut my door behind me. I'm not sure how cowering on the couch would save me from whatever was coming through the floor if I'd just left the door wide open. I called my mom at work (she was 11 hours behind me) to tell her that there was something trying to escape from my floor. My first fear was rats. There was a rate cage perched on the entertainment center in honor of the rat problem the apartment used to have that was supposedly "taken care of". Mom told me to just go back in the room and jump on the bubble and crush whatever was under there. Which a) easy for her to say and b) gross. I compromised and set the big heavy floor fan on it. And the pulsating tipped over the fan. Completely freaked out at this point I went back to the phone and tearfully told my mom that it hadn't worked and that I was convinced this was not a rat but a demon. After my startling revelation mom told me she had to hang up because it was time for her to go.

Seriously?! I have a demon infestation and you have to leave?!




In my room being utterly horrified by the pulsating floor monster.

 Ok, deep breath, I can do this. I have watched six seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I am Catholic. I know what to do about this.

Cower some more on the couch with my feet drawn up until William comes home.

He got in an hour or so later and I immediately pounced on him to go kill the demon. I think since he was slightly inebriated he did not fully appreciate the situation. However, after jumping on the tile bubble did absolutely nothing to make it go away I think he understood. And while we were both staring at the bubble, him in puzzlement me in fear, the bloody thing cracked and caved in. And then, "it" sped across the floor and under my bed pushing up tiles in its wake. The only way I can really describe this is to say 'think Bugs Bunny'. We were both pretty creeped out so we left the room (remembering to close the door) and I slept on the couch. Nicky came home at about 5 AM and was surprised to see me sleeping on the couch and even more so when I sleepily mumbled something about demons in my room.

The next morning Nicky and I huddled together while William took our heaviest skillet and went into my bedroom to kill whatever it was. He eased open the door, skillet at the ready, and prompty started screeching like a girl and ran out of the room. Which of course made Nicky and I cling tighter together as we screamed with him. Then the jerk started laughing hysterically. When we trooped in we saw that the tunnel that lead from the bubble to under my bed had expanded. Looks like the demon had turned so there was now a tunnel running under the length of my bed. Awesome. Not only was there a demon living in my room but it was under my bed. That, combined with the section of my closet that I didn't use cause it creeped me out was like every childhood nightmare combined.

A few days later was Tuesday so all Nicky's and my friends were over. They came over every Tuesday to watch Sex in the City in HBO and then we had self-guided bellydance/salsa/merengue dance lessons. And sometimes tarot card readings. If everyone had money that week we got pizza. If not then we boiled a mess of frozen dumplings. I decided that before there could be any Sex in the City I had to get rid of the darn demon. So, armed with all the knowledge given to me by the brilliant Joss Whedon, I got me some supplies and forced my friends to help hold an exorcism. Someone suggested that this whas surely an Asian demon and I should use a Daoist priest. But I'm not Daoist and hat would not make me feel better. Besides, I firmly believe that Latin is a language of authority to which all respond.

So we placed candles around the "infected" area, all the girls held a candle, and I had holy water.* With O Fortuna from Carmina Burana blaring in the background, at exactly midnight everyone light their candles and started enthusiastically chanting the Latin phrase I'd given them while I flung holy water about my room screeching more Latin.

Then we had a bellydance lesson and read tarot cards. A good time was had by all.

I felt much better after the exorcism. a few more tiles here and there had been displaced before all the Latin but after there was no more pulsating, no more tearing sounds. My landlord never did fix the tiles so I had a constant reminder; of how I kicked some demon butt.

*Ok so I didn't use holy water per say...while holy water is basically free for the taking, it seemed slightly sacraligious to me to use holy water on a civillian exorcism. So I figured since I am practically perfect if I could just use tap water and boil the, heh, hell out of it. Also, I only had one semester of Latin at university. It may have been an advanced class but such phrases as "In the name of Christ I expell you! Demon I charge you to return to Hell!" were not part of our lessons. My friends all chanted something like: Puella nautea rosa in agri dant! which basically means "The girls give roses to the sailors in a field".

Also...it turns out that what "really" happened was a result of that nice, warm weather I mentioned. It seemed that when the temp suddenly spiked, the cememnt to which my floor tiles were glued expanded then contracted thus tearing away from the tiles forcing them up. I still think it was demons.

Happy New Year everyone! 新年快樂!