Guess Who's Got My Back?

I have some very strange stories.  Like the kind that you think a kid makes up when they want to get attention.  The problem is I am an adult, and they're true.  Unbelievable and bizarre, but definitely true.  Whenever I divulge these details to my close friends their usual and understandable response is one filled with wonderment, followed by disbelief and then ending with a questioning look.

So here's the first part of my story.  Before I was born, my father practiced a form of martial arts that engaged the spiritual plane.  If you follow Japanese Anime storylines, there is usually a ballsy dude that essentially fights "demons".  Well, this was my father.  Some people pick up knitting or gardening as a hobby.  My father preferred beating the crap out of evil spirits.  Being the confident person that he was, he decided one day to wager his honed skills with the "big kahuna" of all demons.  If he lost, the Demon can take possession of his first born.  Should he win, the Demon would be an appointed guardian to the same said child.  That's how much balls my dad had.  "Luckily" for me, my dad won.  I use this term loosely because even to this day I am not sure how I feel about having such a dark entity watching my back.  One of the "gifts" of being born with a Demon guardian is apparently the natural ability to access your intuitive side.  Some refer to this as the 6th sense, the spiritual element or the psychic plane.  Yes, I will be the first to say it,  this is some weird-ass shit.   

My dad told me this story when I was younger and over the years more and more details were added to it.  I always thought that this was just one of those Vietnamese "boogy-man" folklore stories designed to keep kids in line.  I would have happily kept it categorized that way except for the fact that way too many coincidences started backing up my dad's story.

My family went back to the motherland (Vietnam) for the first time ever in the Christmas of 1995.  My paternal grandmother lived on this tiny island that is so remote it can only be accessed by boat.  At the time most homes had no power, fresh water was still drawn by a central well in the village and the bathroom was an outhouse.  As foreigners, we were eaten alive by the local insect population so it was customary that we would sleep under mosquito netting at nights to fend off the nightly feasting.  The first night I was there my sister, brother and I crammed ourselves under the only mosquito netting available.  That night, I had a horrible dream about something suffocating me.  The sensation is equivalent to having someone double your weight sitting on your chest thus causing you to gasp for every breath of air.  I woke up the next morning and my left arm was covered with the most bizarre marks near my wrist.  They were not welts from bug bites.  I knew what those looked like because I had them all over my legs.  They looked like bites marks from a super tiny mouth and the strangest thing is that they were purple.  I showed my mom and I will never forget the look on her face.  She went pale and then started to look extremely uneasy.  While she quietly went to find my dad I showed one of my relatives my arm and he blurted out, "Ma can!" which translates to "Demon bites." 

My dad came rushing in and I can tell from his body language that this was no friggin' bug bite.  The entire house started to get excited and everyone was frantically whispering to each other.  I can sense something was not right and when I asked my dad what was wrong, he tried to play it off that it was the most bizarre insect bite he has ever seen.  He quickly gathered up the gawking relatives and ushered them into another room leaving my mom to tend to my wounds.  As the elders debated something in the next room over, I was analyzing Lairay and Stephanie to see if they had been bitten in the same manner.  Nope... they just had your run of the mill mosquito welts.  Strange, we all slept on the same bed under the same netting.  I was then straining to listen to their conversation.  I couldn't catch much because my mom was trying to distract me with idle chat about what we were going to eat for the day.  What I did manage to hear was bits and pieces.  My grandma was yelling at my dad for wagering me against the Demon.  She said something like he was a fool to think that the Demon would keep his word.  One of my uncles was defending my dad saying that it's not HER demon, it's another demon.  After the family meeting my dad came back and announced that we were promptly leaving the island. 

When I asked and probed and pestered, everyone dismissed the incident as a bug bite.  I was finally able to trick my favorite aunt about 2 weeks later.  We were relaxing on the beaches of Nha Trang and she had her guard down.  I manipulatively asked her, "Why did the Demon bite me?  Why not Steph or Lairay or even dad?"  She nonchalantly blurted out, "Because you're the one that can see them."  When she realized she was essentially cornered she quickly changed the topic.

This was the first of many stories that supported my dad's bizarre story of his previous recreational activities.