Spirits of the Railway

The story took place in two different places. First, it was in China where hevy floodwaters swept and farmer Chu and his family lost everithing because of this unfortunate event. So, he had to look for work and he heard there there was work acorss the ocean in the New World.
Chu went there. Many months have passed and no one had heard anything about him again. That was the reason why his eldest son, Young Chu, went to the New World to look for his father.
Once he arrived there, he asked everybody about his father, but nobody had seen him. The days went by and Young Chu couldn’t find his father. So, he decided to get a job and he joined a work gang of thirty Chinese. It was a very hard work in a railway.
One afternoon, Young Chu andthe workers reached a mountain with a half-finished tunnel. Chu shouted his father’s name but some workers came running from the tunnel saying that the tunnel was hounted because they heard footsteps approaching but never arriving. Young Chu said that they had not to be afraid because ghosts were harmless and they had no reason to harm them. So, as Chu and the workers had to work there, he decided to spend the night and sleep there. During the night, he awake and heard a murmur. It was his father’s voice. He realised that his father was dead. As his father could not rest in peace, he asked Young Chu for a favor. Chu had to take chopsticks, straw matting, wrap them together and tie them, take the bundles to the top of the mountain and cover them with soil. Once he could do that, his father would finally sleep in peace and spirits never again disturbed the workers.
I think the story tries to explain us how difficult is being in a place where the weather is very dangerous. That’s why people have to look for other ways of living in other places, but doing this they would probably find some difficulties because it is not as easy to find a job in other countries as in ours. So, people have to think very well in order to get the better for them and for their family.

Poly