First Encounter Of The Ghostly Kind
Dimly Lit Kampung
If you were not born during my time, you may never realised that in those days Singapore was much dimmer and not as brightly lit as today. There were kampungs where there were only lights at strategic places and you still have to walk a long way in the dark to get home. I used to have relatives and friends who lived at such places including at Bishan where there were attap houses and they walked in these dimly lit and dark places daily.
If you were not born during my time, you may never realised that in those days Singapore was much dimmer and not as brightly lit as today. There were kampungs where there were only lights at strategic places and you still have to walk a long way in the dark to get home. I used to have relatives and friends who lived at such places including at Bishan where there were attap houses and they walked in these dimly lit and dark places daily.
We lived in a block where the highest floor is three storey high and on both sides of the stairway one unit each. There were two similar rows like this so the entire block has 18 units. Right behind our block was a kampung that if you walk all the way through, you will reach Potong Pasir. These blocks were constructed almost like those you would find at Prince Charles Crescent.
I have an uncle who lived in this kampung with his mother and grandmother, both very strong women for their age. They were always fond of and very kind to young children like me. Occasionally, I would visit them at their home built on a raised area just opposite a big pond. Like every wide-eyed child, it opens a world of adventure for me. They planted their own star fruit and guava trees and even a flower that can be used to boil in a soup.
It is a place where you will gradually grow into as the first few times you go in, you feel as if you are on a different planet (think of the movie Avatar) except that the chickens and ducks do not fly around but roamed freely and waded across muddy waters and frolicked in the pond. I should be around 5 years of age. At this tender age, I knew not a lot but my only fears were the dirty waters that flowed through some natural drains like a small stream, pariah dogs that may chase you or go very close to have a sniff at you and the ultimate fear was of the toilets.
Night Soil
I have even seen the people whose job your mother has warned you about that is if you do not study hard and do well, you will end up like them - carrying night soil. I have even seen a truck with 36 doors once where it has slots to transport these night soil, something I used to hear about. I was at an age where I could not really understand death much less about the nether world (not underworld). I saw death of those children who drowned or got killed in traffic accidents. I have a natural curiosity on what happened after life but knew nothing about the spirit world.
My greatest fear was not of ghost but when I have to used the toilet at my uncle's house for it was the bucket system. You know they placed a bucket below a raised platform and then they covered it with a wooden plank with a stick handle on it and the moment you removed the cover oh gosh!!! You can't imagine the sight and stench!! If you were to just pee, you could hold your breath a few seconds and run out when done. What happen when you have a stomach ache and you can't wait? You could see flies buzzing and that fear of buzzing flies coming out from there and resting on your nose is worse then seeing a ghost! Trust me. This is worse than krytonite for Superman!
Ice-Ball
Dimly lit kampung, Night Soil man (they are superheroes too for without them, we will be piled up in you know what) and the ice-ball were things of a certain era. The ice ball is the same as the ice kachang you have today except that the hawkers were with push cart and they shaved the ice in manual mode, spinning a handle to grind and shave the ice instead of electric mode. They held the shaved ice in one hand then added red beans, corns and agar-agar in the middle and buried them all with more shaved ice. The final step was to mold into a ball, drip syrup all over as they turned it around and bingo! Your ice ball. You just hold it in your hands and eat.
I Saw It
I have never forgotten this incident. Let me narrate and you will understand if it were for real. One evening on a clear night, it was a typical local weather. Warm and humid. The ice-ball man and his stall was just across the car park, a short distance from where we lived. I was about 5years old like every other care-free boy and was looking forward to get an ice ball. Those days, watching the man made the ice ball can be a spell-binding experience. I got my ice ball and was on the way home. It was maybe between 7-8pm.
Our 3 storey block has 2 units on each side split by the staircase. The staircase lobby was a raised platform of a couple of steps with the staircase nearer to the right side unit and to the left of the staircase was a locked door where may be the workers would store their stuffs and also maybe where the electrical boxes were. The moment I walked up the two steps and was on the staircase lobby, I sensed something at that door and from nowhere a face appeared from where the door was and I could see the apparition of the body from the shoulders to the head and face. It was very clear.
It stared at me and I stared at it but I was rooted. It felt like an hour but may be it was for just 7-10 seconds and then it disappeared as suddenly as it appeared. Even though I never knew what it was nor had I any knowledge of the spirit world, I was naturally fearful. I trembled and when it sunk in, I raced up the stairs with a sense of great fear and started crying all the way home. When my grandmother, parents, uncles and aunts saw me in that state, they might have thought they saw a ghost. Crying, not able to speak, may be the face was white and they must have saw fear in my eyes.
Amazingly, the ice ball was still in the hands and intact. If there had been an Olympic ice-ball race, I could have won. Trust me.
I can't remember much except that I was given some warm water to drink and given time to calm down as everybody surrounded me and I felt protected. When I finally related to them what I saw, I think everybody knew what it was but they didn't say a thing to me for they thought I was too young. So my dad and two burly uncles brought me out to assure me that there was nothing. My uncles even punched and kicked that door to show that there was really nothing to fear. Do you think that what I have encountered was that of a ghost? Let me share about what it was from what I found out in future years and you decide.
Mum's Experience
Many summers has gone by (and we only have summer) and now I've grown up, more fearless and stronger. You know when relatives and friends get together, we can talked about everything and anything. Only now you do it on face book and other social media. Sometimes, the conversation would evolved into ghost stories or the relative experience. Then I heard my mum told of her experience which I never knew and it totally shocked me. In her time, she has to awake early each morning as a few families lived together in the same house. So a single toilet is shared by everyone for all purposes. (No one must complain today).
One morning at about 5am (that would be our current 4am), she was up early as usual and was about to enter the toilet to start her washing so that the clothes could be hung up to dry early. As she opened the metal toilet door, she saw a someone dashed out from inside and then disappeared. What shocked me was her description of the face she saw of the person that dashed out. The height, appearance, facial features, half body apparition was that same thing I saw when I was five and like 15-20 years ago. She described what I saw.
Uncle's Turn
It was may be another 5 years later when an uncle related his own experience. He was a taxi driver who would worked and came home around 3am or 4am. His family lived in the last bedroom right at the end of the apartment's corridor with one room each on both sides. He was tired after driving his shift and was walking slowly and quietly back to his room when he saw someone dashed out of his room and ran past him and when he turned around it disappeared. However, he caught the face and described it.
My spine was chilled to the core when I heard his description for I knew what it was! It was exactly the same as what I heard from mum and something I saw myself. I never knew about what they saw till then.
What Was It?
The apparition we saw was maybe around 5 ft 9 inches. It was a male with a short crop of hair. Was not fat but was of a reasonable size and a strong face. The eyes were a little sunken and it appeared like it has dark rings around the eyes.
Remember, I told you at the age of 5 I do not have any concept of the spirit world. So my mind was never prejudiced or compromised. I remembered running and crying after being rooted for awhile. Hearing from mum and an uncle giving the same description makes me wonder even more. How do I reconciled this? I would sometimes stared at my grandpa's photo to see if there were some resemblance as he had short crop of hair. May be he came back to see us? I was told that he died shortly after my birth as the first grandson so I never really got to see or know him in person.
However, it could not be as mum and my uncles saw and knew grandpa. There was no one we knew that has such a resemblance. Who was that? What was it? What was he trying to do? We never got to find out. Years later our family moved out to live in a new flat. Grandma and some uncles and aunts lived there until finally the old houses were torn down to make way for new developments. Nobody has ever seen that thing again. It was definitely something else but what? A ghost? A spirit? Whatever, it was an experience I will never forget. There will be more coming...I mean real stories not those things.
I have an uncle who lived in this kampung with his mother and grandmother, both very strong women for their age. They were always fond of and very kind to young children like me. Occasionally, I would visit them at their home built on a raised area just opposite a big pond. Like every wide-eyed child, it opens a world of adventure for me. They planted their own star fruit and guava trees and even a flower that can be used to boil in a soup.
It is a place where you will gradually grow into as the first few times you go in, you feel as if you are on a different planet (think of the movie Avatar) except that the chickens and ducks do not fly around but roamed freely and waded across muddy waters and frolicked in the pond. I should be around 5 years of age. At this tender age, I knew not a lot but my only fears were the dirty waters that flowed through some natural drains like a small stream, pariah dogs that may chase you or go very close to have a sniff at you and the ultimate fear was of the toilets.
Night Soil
I have even seen the people whose job your mother has warned you about that is if you do not study hard and do well, you will end up like them - carrying night soil. I have even seen a truck with 36 doors once where it has slots to transport these night soil, something I used to hear about. I was at an age where I could not really understand death much less about the nether world (not underworld). I saw death of those children who drowned or got killed in traffic accidents. I have a natural curiosity on what happened after life but knew nothing about the spirit world.
My greatest fear was not of ghost but when I have to used the toilet at my uncle's house for it was the bucket system. You know they placed a bucket below a raised platform and then they covered it with a wooden plank with a stick handle on it and the moment you removed the cover oh gosh!!! You can't imagine the sight and stench!! If you were to just pee, you could hold your breath a few seconds and run out when done. What happen when you have a stomach ache and you can't wait? You could see flies buzzing and that fear of buzzing flies coming out from there and resting on your nose is worse then seeing a ghost! Trust me. This is worse than krytonite for Superman!
Ice-Ball
Dimly lit kampung, Night Soil man (they are superheroes too for without them, we will be piled up in you know what) and the ice-ball were things of a certain era. The ice ball is the same as the ice kachang you have today except that the hawkers were with push cart and they shaved the ice in manual mode, spinning a handle to grind and shave the ice instead of electric mode. They held the shaved ice in one hand then added red beans, corns and agar-agar in the middle and buried them all with more shaved ice. The final step was to mold into a ball, drip syrup all over as they turned it around and bingo! Your ice ball. You just hold it in your hands and eat.
I Saw It
I have never forgotten this incident. Let me narrate and you will understand if it were for real. One evening on a clear night, it was a typical local weather. Warm and humid. The ice-ball man and his stall was just across the car park, a short distance from where we lived. I was about 5years old like every other care-free boy and was looking forward to get an ice ball. Those days, watching the man made the ice ball can be a spell-binding experience. I got my ice ball and was on the way home. It was maybe between 7-8pm.
Our 3 storey block has 2 units on each side split by the staircase. The staircase lobby was a raised platform of a couple of steps with the staircase nearer to the right side unit and to the left of the staircase was a locked door where may be the workers would store their stuffs and also maybe where the electrical boxes were. The moment I walked up the two steps and was on the staircase lobby, I sensed something at that door and from nowhere a face appeared from where the door was and I could see the apparition of the body from the shoulders to the head and face. It was very clear.
It stared at me and I stared at it but I was rooted. It felt like an hour but may be it was for just 7-10 seconds and then it disappeared as suddenly as it appeared. Even though I never knew what it was nor had I any knowledge of the spirit world, I was naturally fearful. I trembled and when it sunk in, I raced up the stairs with a sense of great fear and started crying all the way home. When my grandmother, parents, uncles and aunts saw me in that state, they might have thought they saw a ghost. Crying, not able to speak, may be the face was white and they must have saw fear in my eyes.
Amazingly, the ice ball was still in the hands and intact. If there had been an Olympic ice-ball race, I could have won. Trust me.
I can't remember much except that I was given some warm water to drink and given time to calm down as everybody surrounded me and I felt protected. When I finally related to them what I saw, I think everybody knew what it was but they didn't say a thing to me for they thought I was too young. So my dad and two burly uncles brought me out to assure me that there was nothing. My uncles even punched and kicked that door to show that there was really nothing to fear. Do you think that what I have encountered was that of a ghost? Let me share about what it was from what I found out in future years and you decide.
Mum's Experience
Many summers has gone by (and we only have summer) and now I've grown up, more fearless and stronger. You know when relatives and friends get together, we can talked about everything and anything. Only now you do it on face book and other social media. Sometimes, the conversation would evolved into ghost stories or the relative experience. Then I heard my mum told of her experience which I never knew and it totally shocked me. In her time, she has to awake early each morning as a few families lived together in the same house. So a single toilet is shared by everyone for all purposes. (No one must complain today).
One morning at about 5am (that would be our current 4am), she was up early as usual and was about to enter the toilet to start her washing so that the clothes could be hung up to dry early. As she opened the metal toilet door, she saw a someone dashed out from inside and then disappeared. What shocked me was her description of the face she saw of the person that dashed out. The height, appearance, facial features, half body apparition was that same thing I saw when I was five and like 15-20 years ago. She described what I saw.
Uncle's Turn
It was may be another 5 years later when an uncle related his own experience. He was a taxi driver who would worked and came home around 3am or 4am. His family lived in the last bedroom right at the end of the apartment's corridor with one room each on both sides. He was tired after driving his shift and was walking slowly and quietly back to his room when he saw someone dashed out of his room and ran past him and when he turned around it disappeared. However, he caught the face and described it.
My spine was chilled to the core when I heard his description for I knew what it was! It was exactly the same as what I heard from mum and something I saw myself. I never knew about what they saw till then.
What Was It?
The apparition we saw was maybe around 5 ft 9 inches. It was a male with a short crop of hair. Was not fat but was of a reasonable size and a strong face. The eyes were a little sunken and it appeared like it has dark rings around the eyes.
Remember, I told you at the age of 5 I do not have any concept of the spirit world. So my mind was never prejudiced or compromised. I remembered running and crying after being rooted for awhile. Hearing from mum and an uncle giving the same description makes me wonder even more. How do I reconciled this? I would sometimes stared at my grandpa's photo to see if there were some resemblance as he had short crop of hair. May be he came back to see us? I was told that he died shortly after my birth as the first grandson so I never really got to see or know him in person.
However, it could not be as mum and my uncles saw and knew grandpa. There was no one we knew that has such a resemblance. Who was that? What was it? What was he trying to do? We never got to find out. Years later our family moved out to live in a new flat. Grandma and some uncles and aunts lived there until finally the old houses were torn down to make way for new developments. Nobody has ever seen that thing again. It was definitely something else but what? A ghost? A spirit? Whatever, it was an experience I will never forget. There will be more coming...I mean real stories not those things.
Comments
Hahahahaaa......