What are you afraid of? Ladders! The rickety wooden ladder at home was as thin as a stalk of hemp. It creaked with every step, and its cracks looked like a mouth ready to swallow me. When I climbed up to dry the grain, the basket on my back left me gasping for breath. I was terrified of missing a step and falling, of breaking my bones. But Father had a lame leg and Mother was frail. If I didn't climb, the grain would rot. How would we survive?
What are you afraid of? Actors! At the temple fair that year, I snuck backstage and lifted the curtain. I came face-to-face with a “ghost” with a chalk-white face, blood-red cheeks, and blackened eye sockets! I was so scared out of my wits that I wet my pants! Ever since, whenever I hear the drums and gongs, my legs start to shake. Actors scare me more than King Yama!
What are you afraid of? Pigs! The outhouse was just two rotten planks, with a pigsty right underneath. If you took too long, a starving pig would leap up! That hot, bristly tongue would suddenly lick my bare bottom! It was disgusting, stinky, and terrifying. It could scare the soul right out of you! But without pigs to eat the filth, where would the fields get their fertilizer? A poor family couldn't do without these filthy creatures!
What are you afraid of? Long worms (snakes)! They were everywhere: in the kang bed-stove, on the beams, in the cornfields, by the outhouse... Everywhere! Cold and slick, they crawled around without a sound, enough to scare the soul right out of you! The big green caterpillars and earthworms in the fields were scary too, but I still had to pick them up. If I didn't, the bugs would devour the crops. What would we eat?
