"Hungry Ghosts" Keep Tourists From Tsunami-Hit Resorts

Stefan Lovgren in Phuket, Thailand
for National Geographic News

January 6, 2006

The existence of ghosts may be debated. But the impact of traditional
Asian beliefs on Thailand's tourism trade since the December 26, 2004,
tsunami appears indisputable.

Tourism from Europe, Australia, and the United States has rebounded since the disaster. But tourist arrivals from elsewhere in Asia have plummeted since the tsunami and have yet to bounce back.

Industry observers cite Asian tourists' fears of ghosts in tsunami-stricken areas as the main reason for the decline.

The tsunami claimed more than 215,000 lives in 11 countries around the Indian Ocean and left another 50,000 people unaccounted for.

Sopaporn Chompradit's mother, SaLee, is among the missing.

Sopaporn and her mother had been running a restaurant, the Cat Bar, for the past two years at the beach resort of Khao Lak, just north of Thailand's popular Phuket Island.

On that fateful December morning Sopaporn was driving with some friends to the town of Phuket when the tsunami struck.

The group escaped unhurt, but the restaurant, along with the rest of Khao Lak, was leveled by the huge wave. Scores of people, most likely SaLee included, were swept out to sea.

A year later Sopaporn and her Swedish boyfriend Johan Gratschev have moved to Phuket, where they recently bought a house. Like most small business owners from Khao Lak, she has no plans to go back to the seaside resort.

"That place is haunted," Sopaporn said. The Thai businesswoman, who is Buddhist, means that literally.

Buddhism and other Asian belief systems hold that if bodies are not recovered and properly buried, their spirits restlessly wander the Earth. Many Asians believe that lost souls try to drag living beings into a spiritual limbo.

"Please tell your fellow Japanese and Chinese back home to stop fearing ghosts and return to this region again," Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra reportedly told tourists last week after a memorial service to commemorate the victims of the tsunami.

Hungry Ghosts

On Thailand's southwestern coast more than 5,300 people died and 2,900 more went missing when the tsunami swept ashore. Half of the victims were foreign tourists.

Since the disaster, tales of ghost sightings have become endemic. Foreign ghosts seem to be particularly common, and many of the accounts are being covered in local newspapers.

One Phuket taxi driver reportedly said he was hailed by four western tourists who asked to go to the airport. The driver chatted as he drove, but when he pulled up at the airport to let the passengers out there was no one there.

"Belief in ghosts and spirits is widespread and all-important in Asian religious and cultural traditions," said Steven Heine, a religious studies professor at the Institute for Asian Studies at Florida International University in Miami.

As Buddhism gradually spread from India to Asia it was molded by various folk religions. Most of these belief systems have a strong element of ancestor worship.

For example, many Chinese people believe that the spirits of the dead endure after death and must be kept happy with offerings and other gestures of honor.

Spirits that are not kept happy, perhaps because they had a bad death or an improper burial, can become aggressive toward the living.

"According to Buddhist hell lore, the beings suffering in hell cannot eat, because whenever they bring food to their mouths the food immediately turns into burning hot coals," said Alvin Cohen, a professor of Chinese language and culture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

"These suffering beings are commonly called e gui, meaning hungry ghost,'" Cohen said.

Hungry ghosts may attack human beings to prompt them to meet the ghosts' needs, according to Asian folklore.

"Where someone dies prematurely … it is commonly believed that the ghosts will hang around the accident area and harass the living who come near," Cohen said.

Cleansing Rituals

In Thailand tourist arrivals to Bangkok dropped by 27 percent between January 2004 and January 2005.

Korean and Japanese travel agencies have reportedly seen a massive drop-off in the number of bookings to Thai coastal resorts. Business is so bad that many Asian airlines have cut their direct flights to Phuket.

"Asian tourists are scared of ghosts … and these are factors that have made our tourist arrivals drop short of our goal," Thai tourism minister Somsak Thepsuthin told a local radio show.

The Thai government has given private companies grants equal to millions of U.S. dollars for marketing and advertising campaigns to help Asian tourists overcome their fears.

Meanwhile, Buddhist monks have been presiding over cleansing ceremonies at resorts that were destroyed by the tsunami.

According to Buddhist teachings, the spirits of those who suffer a violent death will roam the land until they are calmed and blessed.

Days after the tsunami struck, monks in flowing orange robes could be seen walking along the beaches sprinkling holy water.

But for Sopaporn and other small business owners, who generally don't own the land on which their businesses once stood, the decision to leave is final.

"I lost everything," Sopaporn said. "I don't want to go back. There are too many dead people there."

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