Are You Afraid Of Ghost?

For me, the answer is a resounding YES!

I guess I can consider myself lucky that I don’t get to meet them all that often. XD

Foong commented in one of my post about why I never blogged about my encounters after I shared my experience in his post about a haunted hotel in Penang. The answer to that will be I’m too much of a scaredy cat! LOL I think until I put up another post after this one, I would not visit my own blog at night!

To start my story, I guess I have to go way back when I was a toddler. Yep, that long ago. My parents used to live nearby to my great-grandfather and grandfather’s house. My late great-grandfather was a landlord and he had a cluster of houses for rent and some of these houses were for his children.

1.
I barely remember this incident, but my aunts and uncles would be quick to tell the whole story should one ask. One of my late great-grandfather’s tenants was into black magic and he can actually turn to “Harimau Jadian”. I don’t know what would be the English term for this, but put simply he can turn into a tiger. (Think Manimal but more sinister). One dark, stormy night, he turned into one after an argument and came barging to the family house. Bear in mind, traditional Malay houses of yesteryears were built on stilts and are very high above the ground. In order to save me, my aunt actually grabbed me and jumped out of the window. Luckily, my great-grandfather was a man who can handle spirits (evil or otherwise) – what we Malay would call “ada ilmu” – and managed to subdue the guy.

2.
Another time when I was about 6 or 7, along with some relatives, I went for a day trip to the beach (Morib or PD, I forgot) and came back to Raub rather late at night. If anyone had ever use the old road (the one going through Sungai Chetang and Kampung Sang Lee) would know how scary and dark the road would be at night. The car broke down somewhere along Lurah Bilut and we were pretty much stranded. The road was deserted and dark. Some of us got out of the car to stretch out. Within minutes, one of my uncles ushered us to quickly get back in the car. Out of nowhere, there were sands being thrown at us. This went on for a few agonizing minutes, but it felt like a lifetime. Then, rain came down. What make the rain so scary was, it was raining just around the car and not elsewhere! We went through this ordeal until a car passed by and the driver kindly allowed us to hitch a ride. Only the ladies and children hitched a ride while the men (my uncles) stayed behind. The next morning, my uncles told us that afterwards, they saw a “batu nisan” or headstone came rolling down in front of the car. Scary!

3.
At this same stretch of road, my late grandfather witnessed a “pontianak” chasing the car while I was sleeping at the back seat when we were on our way to KL from Raub. Eeeeek! You think that Proton ad about the Pontianak not wearing a seatbelt funny? Not for me!

4.
In the old house my family used to live in, and in my old room – several people (all men) complained of being sat down while they were sleeping. My cousin told me that he saw a beautiful woman sitting on top of him and was very heavy; so heavy that he had a hard time breathing. Even my brother experienced this when he took over my room after I went to study in boarding school. Also, there were stories of how my room would smell like Bunga Tanjung. This flower is synonymous with Malay gravesite as they are planted abundantly there.

5.
Boarding schools are where there are plenty of ghost sightings. I was lucky that while my roommates experienced a lot of scary incidents, I went through 5 years of boarding school without ever directly meeting a ghost. (Zaini said it was probably because I was a "hantu" myself. LOL I admit I was no angel when I was younger) One time, when I was 14, my roommate who shared the bunk bed with me (I was on the top bunk and she was below), told me that her bed was shaken violently while I was completely oblivious of it. Another roommate had the luck of witnessing Japanese soldiers marching down the dorm when she was staying up late to study. There were stories at my school about some students having met a long haired lady brushing her teeth in the middle of the night and when she turned around to face the students, one would see that she was brushing her teeth with a knife and blood would be streaming down from her mouth. Which is why, I would rather have kidney failure and avoided going to the toilet at night rather than face this “lady”.

6.
The only really scary experience I got during my schooling days were hearing a dragging sound outside our dorm late at night. The sound was like a woman who had a really heavy leg and was trying to walk from Point A to Point B with great difficulty. Was it a fragment of the students’ imagination? The school administration actually organized a Yassin (Quranic verses) reading every night to counter this unseen visitor. I think those in Kuantan in 1988 would remember this event. I heard that this "lady" came visiting all the places that she visited during her life.

7.
Do you know that I never ever sleep without a blanket to cover my feet? No matter how hot the night would be, I will still cover my feet, else I will have a restless night. The reason? I don’t want to wake up with a feeling of something squashy and soft lying near my bare feet only to discover that it was a Hantu Pocong ever ever again! So there!

What's your ghost story?

p.s. none of the above story are fiction.

Foong, you think the "good spirits" in my house scary. They were nice, compared to all of the above!

Comments

  1. i hope i won't have nightmares after reading this.

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  2. thank goodness it's broad daylight now.

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  4. congrats for being my FC today. you're real fast.

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  5. Wah! No wonder you believe in ghosts! So many different experiences! This 'harimau jadian' is real? I thought it only happens in movies!

    One of my worst fear is driving alone at night in a isolated or lonely road and then having the car break down. It will definitely be my worst nightmare! Don't want to meet with any pontianak or see any batu nisan rolling down towards me! Yikes!!

    I think a lot of people experience about getting sat on by ghosts. My friend also had this experience and she said she could not breathe and when she tried to shout, no voice came out from her throat. However, I've read somewhere that science has an explanation for this though can't remember the reasoning. Something to do with the sensation you feel when you are very tired before you go to bed.

    Boarding schools have lots of ghost stories. Nowadays schools have hysteria which is also very strange. Makes my hair stand!

    What exactly is hantu pocong? They lay down at your feet? Oh my god, must remember to cover my legs when I sleep! : )

    Last time when I was small, there was this thing called hantu kum kum. Have you heard of that? I was so terrified because there were so much stories about it. Also, hantu stocking? So funny now I think about it, but last time I was absolutely terrified!!

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  6. @life ramblings,
    so happy to be your FC. :) Lucky you were reading this during the day. XD

    @foong,
    yes, I heard about the explanation on the "being sat on" experience. Don't know what to think of it as I haven't had the experience yet. *touch wood*

    There is one college where one of my friend's daughter went to. They had mass hysteria almost every night, so one of the measures taken by the college admin, apart from inviting known Islamic scholars known for dealing with these spirtis, was to purge the college of all things that look like animals, be it soft toys, bedsheets or pyjamas with cartoon animals and the like to avoid these spirits to enter the animal and disturb the students.

    Hahaha I remember hantu kum kum. My mom used to scare us to listen to her (ie not to go out of the house) with the hantu kum kum tales.

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  7. I never had ghost encounters, and I'll tell those ghosts to better f**k off than mess with me. I don't know why, maybe I'm somehow lucky? XD

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  8. I actually miss having a ghost around - the house we've been in doesn't have one. But I've had lots of first experiences of the decades, starting since I was about 14 at a boarding school and in several homes I lived in throughout my life.

    Ghost are no big deal - the majority of ghosts are just left over "engery" like a video tape replaying over and over or if on rare occasions they are more of an "intelligent haunting" where it may be the spirit of someone it's still just energy and can't hurt anything in the physical world.

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  9. I believe in ghost. But, I never encounter one before and I hope it remains that way :)

    My dad had several encounters with ghost. He is the type of person who is unafraid of anything...even ghost. He told me about one of his encounter where he chase the ghost with a parang...and...it works. lol...

    I am just like you. I can't sleep without my blanket. I feel much more secured and safe under my soft warm blanket :)

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  10. Always good to read about others' experiences... I wrote about mine here a while ago... kinda tame compared to yours, thankfully!

    Harimau jadian would probably be best translated as a "weretiger", I think.

    I looked up hantu pocong: the book didn't make it out to be a malevolent spirit, and said something about it wanting people to unknot its mori so that it can be released from this world. Not that I'm negating your experience at all! I'm just curious about what else happened after that :D

    My sister in law told me tales about her mother when much younger saw a pontianak, and how more recently, her father met P. Ramlee in the LRT near the Kg Baru stop.

    Love it!! :)

    (Yes, I'm weird!)

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  11. @Jim,
    ghost scared of you!

    @Lady Rose,
    There are plenty of encounters here where people are possessed by spirits and it is damn scary to witness the exorcism!

    But I do somewhat agree with you. I kinda miss my old home where everything creaks and there were bumps in the night as opposed to my FIL very sterile feeling house. LOL

    @Jason,
    a kindred spirit. One thing I won't do is to pull up the blanket to cover my face when I got scared. Who knows the spirit/ghost decided to join me under the blanket too!

    @lynne,
    the Hantu Pocong experience was when I was small. There seems to be plenty of sightings for me when I was smaller. Dunno why. :(
    It just sat there and I froze until I pass out or something. Once, while in Kuantan there were stories of Hantu Pocong sighting, where some students (roomates included - the one who felt our bed shaken) saw the pocong hopping in the dorm. It was scary because they reported that the top knot was almost undone - hence one would see the hantu face soon.

    I heard about the P Ramlee sightings too. When I was working at Menara Tan & Tan and when I returned late, I would keep my eyes on the window just in case I do see a face at the window. Scared but still want to see. Weird kan? :D

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  12. what a coincidence i also experienced very scary nightmare in a hotel in Penang! Terus shorten our stay and headed to Kltn. Sgt takut nak baca u guys nye entry last nite. Pagi ni baru baca hehehe saya sgtlah penakut org nye :P Dr dulu sampai skrg tak leh tido sorang2 dlm gelap. Mesti kena bukak lampu punye.
    Boarding school experience pun lebih kurang same je. There was one night I was awaken by a friend next to me n heard very weird sound (bunyi asing) at the back of our head. Tp pura2 buat tak dengar. Tido mampus la konon. I sure think my friend mase tu kutuk habis LOL Sampai skrg I wondered what that was.

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  13. Here is mine:

    http://www.xanga.com/dead_cockroach/688884767/knock-knock-whos-there

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  14. @Farah,
    I pun, kalo dengar bunyi-bunyian ni, matilah nak bukak mata. Baik pretend tido mampus! LOL

    @DC,
    scary. Lucky I am reading your post in broad daylight! So, did anything happen when the altar lights went off?

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  15. Whatever happened to the hantu kum kum? Do you know the story behind it?

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