The Langsuir Of Genting Highlands (女鬼复仇记)

This is a pretty popular ghost story and it has many versions, some version mentioned that this case happened on the Karak Highway, while another version mentioned that it was in Genting Highlands.

In the mid 70’s, a young couple visited the casino in Genting Highlands. At first they won a lot of money but their good luck didn’t last. After 12 midnight, they had lost most of their money won; including their own capitals.

Since this couple even lost their capitals, they had no place to stay. So the husband decided to go down the highland in the midst of the night. Somehow, the luck was not on their side as their car suddenly came to a halt half way down the hillside because the petrol was already exhausted.

At this point, the husband decided to walk down the hillside to seek help because it was just past midnight and the road was empty; added to that no human dwellings could be found.

The wife thought that was the best method because since there was no traffic; there would not be any robbers. So, she allowed her husband to go out and the wife decided to take a nap in the car.

After the wife slept for a while and she suddenly awoke and her watch showed it was 4am; her husband still nowhere to be found. Although she was afraid, she dared not go down the car to look for her husband.

Having said so, the wife found a very strange thing: when she sat in the car, though the road was relatively empty; there were still cars passing by slowly. The odd thing was that whenever an incoming car approached her car at normal speed; it would suddenly speed up quickly and only to slow down after passing her car at quite a distance.

Although this wife is afraid, she remained in her seat as she was alone and her husband still nowhere to be seen. Some time passed and a police patrol car stopped by. The wife heard a policeman spoken through the public announcer to ask her to step out of her car and walk towards the police car without having to look back.

And even though, she was in doubt, the wife followed the police officer’s instruction and walked towards the patrol car. As she was approaching the police car, a policeman quickly rushed out of the patrol car and pulled the wife in. While she was being half pull and half tugged into the police car; the wife managed to turn her head.

There, the wife saw a long haired creature in white sitting on her car chewing a bloody human head… And the wife was panic stricken and she fainted immediately.

The next day, a group of search and rescue team was dispatched to find the missing husband. After some search, the team found a headless body of a man lying about 100 feet away from the car.

It was said that the wife later consult a bomoh, and the bomoh told this unfortunate wife:

“10 years ago, a pregnant lady accountant took her company’s $100,000 to gamble in the casino. Your husband enticed this lady to where your car halted and pushed the pregnant lady down into the ravine. Since the pregnant lady died in hatred, it transformed in to a ‘langsuir’ and waited at the place until your husband revisited the place. You should know that your husband was very reluctant to come, but because of your insist; he came and the langsuir just took this opportunity to take her revenge.”

As the story goes, the wife was so regret that she finally became mad and she had been staying in mental asylum ever since. 

The Ten Incredible Characters (十大文字秘法)

The ten incredible characters are used primarily by Taoism, Japanese Mantrayana and Ninjitsu for calming a practitioner’s mind before making a major decision or performing a mission critical task. The characters are:

天

Used when seeking help from the VIPs

Used when a person is sailing

龍

Used when a person wishes to cross waters: lakes, rivers or seas etc.

Used when a person wishes to go out during storms

虎

Used when a person enters jungle or wilderness

Used when a person is facing with robbers or wild animals

王

Used when a person needs to face government officials or court cases

Used when a person needs to face with evil people

命

Used when one doubts foods and drinks offered to him/her

Used when one faces with enemies or in debate

勝

Used when one is going to war

Used when making business deals

口是

Used when one wishes to visit a sick person

Used when one is expected to visit evil places

大

Used when one is expected to visit doubtful (danger) places

Used when one is visiting the seriously ill

水

Used when one is visiting unfamiliar persons

Used when one is paying homage to spirits

日

Used when one is attending festive celebrations

Used when one is visiting the sick

In order to harness the power of the above characters, a man/woman should use his/her right/left sword mudra to draw the character onto his/her left/right palm while holding his/her breathes. 

The power of the characters will manifest if a practitioner can perform the ritual calmly and confidently. Of course, a practitioner must first be familiarized with how to write those characters first. So needless to say, constant practise is necessary before they are being used in real situation. 

I have personally tried some of the characters and they will do what has been said as above. If you try on ad hoc basis; then the characters may or may not function.

The Mysterious Padang Tembak (神秘的打枪埔)

‘Padang Tembak’ is located in central Penang near Air Itam. It is an area of HDB flats which was built after WWII. There are a total of 9 HDB flats, each flat is 17 stories high and each floor consists of 24 units. So there is a total of 408 units in a flat. As the name ‘Padang Tembak’ implies, this was the killing field of Japan Imperial Army; and these flats are built just beside a graveyard. Having said so, this is an area of high density too.

Though a small area, Padang Tembak has many ghost stories to share. For example: the old man in ancient costume, bride in the lift, sounds of Indian chanting and ringing from a homicide unit, the haunted lake on the Datuk’s Lake (many people were found drowned there), The hung ghost of Chen Meilian at foothill etc.

I will start telling those ghost stories as I jog my mind. So in no particular orders:

A contractor friend of mine said, he once returned from work late at night and he was waiting for lift at the basement. When the lift finally arrived and the door opened, suddenly he saw a long hair lady in white suddenly rushed into the lift. He has never seen this lady before, further he couldn’t see the lady’s face as it was covered by her hair. My pal dared not step in because he was wondering… was she a human or was she something else?

Another story of lift goes like this: a person returned home at midnight, when the lift door opened, a bride looking lady sitting in a wheel chair… the person was so scared that he rather used the staircase instead. Was she a mad woman or was she something else?

Yet another story said that someone seen an old in ancient costume crying at night beside lift at lower basement.

An old lady who has been living in Padang Tembak said when the HDB was built, there were many strange happenings. For example: bus conductors from Lim Seng Sheng Company mainly would receive many hell notes (阴司钱) and toilets were often found lock from outside etc. It was also said that during the construction of HDB flats, the workers dug out many human remains believed to be victims of Imperial Army.

Another friend of mine who is a resident of HDB said that she had an awful experience with the lift too. About 20 years ago, she visited a friend who was staying just two blocks away at night. After my friend went into the lift, the lift suddenly halted and power supply was cut off. It was pitch dark in the lift compartment. My friend was certainly afraid, so she kept pressing emergency bell and banged on the door. Suddenly my friend heard a clear voice said: “Don’t worry, I am already here for 10 years!”

My friend almost fainted as she was alone in the lift. Luckily, the lift resumed operation a few minutes later. She said that her feet were so shaky that she had to craw to her friend’s place!

In the 70’s, Malaysia was experiencing recession, the new HDB flats were the only high rise buildings around. So they naturally became the infamous spots for ‘suicide by jumping’ (跳楼).

According to Mr. Gong, suicide jumping cases were very frequent then, in addition to the locality of the HDB flats near graveyard and the effects of rumors; in residents in the 70’s fear ghosts more than the robbers.

Those suicide cases begun to reduce in the 80’s and such cases are rare now due to the availability of taller buildings in Penang.

Ms Lee said that she heard the possibility of meeting ghosts is high in first and second blocks because there are people ‘keeping small ghosts’ (养小鬼) and in some units, plates and objects move by themselves. Such incidents too had scared away many tenants.

Even though Padang Tembak is reputed to be haunted, most residents had already gone custom as ghost stories remain as ghost stories; no one really gets hurt by those ghosts. So some of the residents even drink tea and exercise at the cemetery nearby.

The Green Face Datuk (青面拿督)

Uncle Beng owns a piece of agricultural land beside existing Bukit Mertajam Recreational Forest. He planted some durians and black pepper plants. Whenever we need to enter the place mainly to enjoy the durians, Uncle Beng will first bring us to a giant anthill to pray for the datuk spirit. He said that the datuk that guards the area is the so-called ‘Datuk Hijau’ or the ‘Green Datuk’.

There are some taboos on entering the Datuk Hijau’s domain and in particular the jungle:

First, one should not talk nonsense and control one’s language because this datuk is the ‘Datuk Hijau’ which is the hottest temper of all the datuks. So, one must be very careful as not to offend him unnecessarily.

Second, it is forbidden to bring along raw meats and bloods to the forest, especially the pork because those things will attract evil spirits; and pork will offend the Datuk Hijau since he is thought to be a muslim.

Third, it is best to call each other by nickname than the real name.

Forth, it is forbidden to bring items from the forest back in fear of the item may be haunted.

Fifth, it is forbidden to enter the forest after dark unless with the datuk’s permission.

This Datuk Hijau likes ‘kopi-O’ (black coffee), kemayan (benzoin), mutton curry with yellow sticky rice and tobacco.

According to Uncle Beng, the anthill is alive and it is constantly growing. The first time he saw this anthill, it was only 3 feet tall. Now it has grown to slightly more than 5 feet tall.

At the initial stage of forest clearing for planting durian, Uncle Beng spent a lot of money to buy food offerings to the Datuk Hijau and all went very well until two of his Indonesian workers for some reasons, tried to chop the anthill with machetes. Due to the chopping of machetes, a large hole was formed. It was said that some green smoke suddenly rushed out from the hole.

Both of the workers were scared and ran back to their hostel. Uncle Beng was coincidentally there and after he has learnt of the incident, he quickly rushed to the anthill with both of the workers.

To their surprised, there was no hole in the anthill. Apparently the hole was somehow sealed by something and the anthill looked just as before. Uncle Beng knew that his workers were in trouble so he planned to dismiss them as soon as their contract expired.

A few days later, surprisingly speaking; the two workers accidentally disturbed a big nest of ground hornet. Suddenly hundreds of hornets rushed out from the nest and attacked the workers. Strangely as it may be, the hornets seemed only interested in attacking those two workers and left ten others alone.

No one dares to assist the dual because most of the workers didn’t have protective clothing to fence off the hornets. Ten minutes later, the hornets dispersed. By then, both of the poor workers had died.

Uncle Beng later added that the incident was expected but he didn’t expect the retribution came so fast. Hence, whenever Uncle visits his land, he would first pray to the anthill said to be the emanation of Datuk Hijau.

The Story Of Anthill (白蚁窝)

In Malaysia amongst local Chinese and Indians, anthills are believed to be haunted. Some people believe a selected few anthills are dwelled by local spirit known as ‘datuk’. If these haunted anthills are disturbed by anyone; this person may be harmed by these ‘datuk’ spirits.

My Uncle Beng is an ardent angler and he had a scientific minded friend, Jack who was also an angler. Jack was one of those few who don’t believe in ‘datuk’ of any sort.

One day, Uncle Beng and Jack went to Trong just outskirt of Taiping town to fish for kelah fish. Both of them arrived at the Trong riverside where there was a huge anthill. Since Jack was a city dweller, he had never seen things like that. So Jacked asked Uncle Beng to explain some background about this anthill.

Uncle Beng knew Jack would do something funny on the anthill but he warned Jack not to disturb this funny looking anthill as it might be haunted by ‘datuk’. After some conversations, they split to find their ideal location to fish. Uncle Beng went further downstream and Jack stay put near the anthill.

A few hours later, the sky became cloudy. Uncle Beng decided to call it a day so he went to look for Jack. After finding Jack they returned to get the car. As Uncle Beng turned his head, he saw the anthill was almost destroyed. Uncle certainly knew who did the job but he kept silent; there is no point arguing about those matters anyway.

Their returning path wasn’t very smooth as heavy rain started to pour. It was still a long way out to the main road and Uncle Beng started to get worry because the path the car was travelling was getting muddy and this made the car difficult to move smoothly. The situation really wasn’t looking very good and Uncle started to blame himself that he should have driven his four wheel drive truck. The sudden weather change had caught Uncle by unexpected as July is supposed to be a dry month.

Trees on both side of the return path swayed under strong wind and before Uncle could find a safe place to park his car to seek shelter, a coconut tree suddenly toppled under strong gale and quite unfortunately; the tree trunk fell onto the passenger’s seat beside Uncle. Unfortunately too, Jack was hurt quite badly though Uncle was relatively unharmed.

Strangely speaking, the wind suddenly subsided and the sky cleared. Luckily, a truck was seen coming from the opposite direction. So, Uncle waved at the truck to seek help. By the time Jack was sent to the local hospital, he was pronounced dead due to severe head injury.

Although no one can be sure if this accident is caused by angry datuk spirit, Uncle Beng firmly believed the case to be so.

I am sure you would like to ask: “Are all anthills haunted by datuk?”

Well, the answer is no. Not all anthills are haunted. You can almost certain which is haunted when you see one. If you find a single large anthill in a jungle, and there are no other anthills around; then it is likely that it is haunted.

Having said so, there are people in kampongs specifically seek out the termite queen. It is believed that these termite queens are very nutritious if swallowed alive. But I have also heard that some of the termite queens may not die in stomach and I have heard the people died from internal bleeding because the queen had chewed a hole in the person’s stomach.

Whatever case that might be, it would be safe just to stay away from anthill of any kind. However, if they are blocking on your way, please do remove them!

The Haunted Gunung Jerai (日莱峰遇山神)

I visited Gunung Jerai once after the completion of my secondary school. About 10 of us went camping on top of Gunung Jerai in Kedah. Our aim was to enjoy the beautiful sunrise scene at the summit.

When we e arrived at the summit of the mountain, the sun was about to set. So we quickly erected our tents and started a bonfire for cooking. According to our old folks’ advises, we first find a boulder near our campsite and then took out some prepared foods and incense to pray to the earth and mountain gods so that our stay would be pleasant.

After that, we went on with our business, played games, sang and even told ghost stories until such a stage that there is nothing to say anymore. There were long silence amongst us; only sounds of insects and the cracking of burning fire woods can be heard.

Someone finally suggested that we should explore our surroundings; not entering the jungle but just exploring at vicinity of our camps. So each of us brought our own torchlight and off we went. We walked and walked and suddenly, Johnny wanted to pee.

He looked around and he said he would pee at the back of the boulder. So Johnny asked me to use my torchlight to shine at him (not his penis though). I obliged if that would please him.

Actually I really intended to shine at his penis just to make fun. However, something behind Johnny attracted my attention. I seemed to have seen someone or something so I diverted my torchlight and shone at the thing. At this point, Johnny yelled: “Hey! Pay attention would you. I have peed onto my own shoes!”

But I ignored Johnny and turned my head to Eric and asked: “Did you see what I just saw?”

Eric nodded and he too turned on his torchlight and shone at Johnny’s back. Both of us saw a long beard old man with long white garment holding a walking stick in his right hand and his left hand seemed to be moving behind Johnny’s back as we can see Johnny’s body shaking for some reason.

Eric was knowledgeable about spiritual stuffs as his grandpa was a practising Taoist. So he shouted at Johnny: “Hey! Johnny! Quickly finish your business now! Why are you shaking there for so long?”

Johnny quickly pulled his zip and while doing so, he said: “I felt something is scratching my back!” Our lips were sealed and we hurried back to our campsite.

When we were back at the camp, Johnny said he felt burning sensation at his back. So we asked him to take off his T-shirt. All of us were shocked! There were five red scratching marks at the back of Johnny!

The next morning after we have packed up our items, we descended from the mountain peak. When we passed by the boulder which Johnny had peed at, there we found food offerings we had presented to the local spirits… Perhaps the spirits were angry because their foods were tainted by Johnny’s urine? We could only guess.

The Penanggal Of Ayer Itam Dam (水坝上的飞头鬼)

The Ayer Itam I meant here refers to suburb of George Town, Penang. Ayer Itam has a dam which was built in 1914 and it is in operation until today. The purpose of me mentioning Ayer Itam Dam is not to promote tourism, only to mention that this dam is reputedly to be haunted by a ‘penanggal’ or otherwise known as the ‘flying head ghost’.

In case you are not familiar with penanggal, it is actually half-human and half-spirit kind of creature. It is said that some Malay bomoh (shaman) would practise this kind of black magic. During certain days of a month, the bomoh’s head would severe from the body and flies out from the house in search of human blood and internal organs. This flying head normal can be seen flying in the air with its internal organs dangling beneath. Anyone who is bitten by this penanggal will die; but a penanggal would normally attack pregnant ladies and small kids. If this penanggal failed to return to its body by dawn, it will die.

Some lucky early bird dam joggers would have a chance to witness this creature around 6am or so. The locals believe that this penanggal at Ayer Itam Dam normally flies inside and around the forest looking for preys. There are people who claimed to have seen a head with eerie green glow traversing the dam at dawn probably it want to return to the owner’s body before sun rise.

About two decades ago, a few friends of mine who had nothing good to do and somehow ghost hunting became their favorite pastime. So a group of them ventured to the Ayer Itam Dam during one full moon night to wait for the fying head ghost. They brought together with them a large fish net and some mengkuang leaves for protection.

At first they waited on the dam in a large group, but after an hour or so; nothing appeared except many fruit bats hovering on top of their heads. While waiting for the penanggal, about 5 of them used the fishnet to cover themselves just in case. So they waited and waited until it was around 5am and they heard a very awful human-like shriek. Almost immediately after the shriek, an object flew past their heads.

Their natural instinct made all of them raised their heads and all of them saw the legendary flying head with its internal organs! As the flying head went past above my friends’ face; some slimy liquid dripped onto their faces. According to my friends, they didn’t know what the liquid was but it smelled like blood.

All of them were extremely frightened; they immediately stood up and started to run… But they have forgotten the fishnet. So as the group started to run and they all were entangled inside the fishnet; all fell onto the ground in a big bundle.

My friends stayed in the bundle until some joggers discovered them and cut them loose. All of my pals fell sick for one month and they claimed to have bad luck for three whole years! No wonder old folks would advise us not to hang our clothes outside at night...