Forbidden Hill by John D. Greenwood

Author:John D. Greenwood [Greenwood, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781912049196
Publisher: Monsoon Books Pte. Ltd.
Published: 2017-11-01T00:00:00+00:00

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The peons came to the cottage where Moon Ling lived with her sons and daughter, and told her that she had to move to the west side of the river, where the Chinese community were to be resettled. They told her they would have to dismantle her cottage and joss house to Ma Cho Po, and advised her to remove any contents she wished to take with her. With the help of a Chinese family who lived nearby, Moon Ling and her children moved to a small plank and attap hut on the beach at Telok Ayer, where she set up a new joss house to Ma Cho Po. This became very popular with the hundreds of sinkeh who disembarked in Telok Ayer Bay, and who gave thanks to the goddess for their safe passage to Singapore.

One day when Moon Ling was preparing her offerings, her daughter asked her how Ma Cho Po had become a goddess.

‘Well, pretty one,’ Moon Ling began, ‘the story goes like this. During the time of the Northern Song Dynasty, a baby was born on Meizhou Island in Fukien Province to a family called Lin. They had six children, only one of whom was a daughter. The mother prayed to Kuan Yin, the goddess of mercy, for another daughter. Kuan Yin came to the mother in a dream, and gave her a flower blossom to eat, which made her pregnant.

When the baby girl came into the world, the birthing room was filled with brilliant light and the soft fragrance of blossoms. Although she was bright-eyed and healthy, the baby girl never cried, so they called her Muonjiang, which means ‘keeping silent’. Lin Muonjiang grew up by the sea–shore, and watched the fishing boats and trading junks set out in all weathers.

One day when she and her friends were gazing at their reflections in a rock pool, a monster appeared with a bronze talisman in its claws. The other girls fled, but Muonjiang was very brave and stood her ground, and reached out and took the talisman from the monster. From that day forth she developed strange powers of healing and prophecy. She could predict the coming weather, and warned sailors when it was too dangerous to set out on a voyage. She was a powerful swimmer, and would often rescue sailors when their ships sank in a storm.

One afternoon, while she was weaving a blanket for her sister, Muonjiang fell into a deep sleep. In her dream, she saw her father and brother washed overboard from their fishing boat in a great storm, and dived into the sea to rescue them. She grasped her brother in her arms, and held her father’s sleeve in her teeth as she swam towards the shore.

Her mother came into the room, and seeing her daughter asleep, went to wake her. She touched Muonjiang gently on the shoulder, and asked her if she was unwell. Still half asleep, Muonjiang tried to answer, but as she opened her mouth in her dream she let go of her father’s sleeve, and he was swept away by the angry sea.

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