Incubi In Irish Hotel (爱尔兰的梦魇)

Wendy is a movie actress and at times, she also hosting some TV programs. Because of her profession, she has to travel to many places; and Wendy too has her fair share of her ghostly encounters both abroad and in the country.

Once, Wendy was assigned to Ireland for a few days to do a travelling documentary for a Hong Kong TV show. The filming team travelled to Ireland and they were arranged to stay in an old Irish hotel by the sea. Each of the crews was given a room and Wendy got a room on the second floor at the end of the corridor facing the sea. It was mid-Summer and the scenery in Ireland was fantastic.

First few days went passed smoothly and the filming progress was excellent. The shooting completed one day ahead of the schedule. Upon completion of filming, the happiest of course, was Wendy herself and another actress Katherine. For the ending of filming means the beginning work for other filming and editing crews. As they were busying reviewing the videos, the two ladies were doing shopping and sightseeing for the entire day.

After a day’s rigorous shopping activities, Wendy and Katherine returned to their separate rooms for the night. They must get up early to catch the morning flight back to Hong Kong the next day.

In the middle of the night, Wendy couldn’t really sleep soundly because her mind was still active with her day time activity. As she was thinking in her bed, she suddenly heard a high pitched noise which sounded like ‘vinnn…’ and almost immediately she found that she couldn’t open her eyes or her body and a force seemed to press on her chest making she hard to breathe.

At this point, Wendy knew that she was suffering ‘hag-ride’ and she started to murmur whatever words that came across her mind: “I am sorry for disturbing. I will leave tomorrow. Forgive me for intruding your place… help me Buddha, help me Jesus Christ…”

However, all those chanting didn’t help. As now Wendy felt a cold and sticky tongue sort of stuff starting to force into her mouth. Then Wendy somehow thought of what I had told her: “If you see ghost, then say that ‘I AM A GHOST, WE ARE ALL GHOSTS!’

So at the last resort, Wendy started to say: “I AM A GHOST, YOU ARE A GHOST; WE ARE ALL GHOSTS!!”

Surprisingly, Wendy heard a loud cry: “Yaaak! I hate ghost!”

And almost immediately, Wendy could now open her eyes and there she saw a male like transparent creature with a pair of bat-like wings rose from her body and flew out from her room window.

Wendy didn’t tell anyone about her strange experience, after all; no one would believe her anyway. She finally rang me up to tell me her story because I was the one who taught her the super mantra…

The Restless Tea Lady (茶水女工)

My friend’s recording studio is located in a building in KL. The building management hired a tea lady to take care of cleaning and odd jobs which she may be asked to do by various business tenants. These jobs also including serving tea and foods to office workers and visitors. One day the tea lady was found dead while cleaning the male toilet and rumour has it that the restless soul of this tea lady haunted the male floor ever since. Nobody likes to visit the toilet for the fear of bumping into this tea lady ghost and people would rather either use the toilet upstairs or downstairs. Of course, when it comes to answering the call of nature; it is not always possible for a person to choose a toilet of his/her choice.

One night, my friend Paul worked very late editing a last minute sound recordings for a movie in his studio. It was just passed twelve o’clock midnight, since he must send the edited recording to a customer first thing in the morning; he had to burn the midnight oil or lose his long-time customer. You know, many things could happen when a person is running short of time; and answering the call of nature is just one of those many show stoppers.

As Paul was engrossed with his work, he suddenly felt an urge to visit the toilet. And, as he hated it so much; he had to rushed to the nearest toilet or dirty his pants. So said, Paul immediately dropped everything on his hand and rushed into the male toilet on his floor. Then, he pulled down his pants and sat on the toilet bowl; and started to unload himself…

Suddenly, he heard knocking sounds on his toilet door. It was a series of rapid and hard knocks and then the voice of a lady came from the other side of the door: “Do you want some tea please?”

Paul immediately stopped what he was about to do, and he pulled up his pants; and opened the door… Surprisingly, there were no one there. He inspected all of the toilet compartments and found not a single soul…

Feeling agitated with severe stomach upset, he returned to the toilet compartment to discharge himself. Again, as soon as Paul’s all systems go; the knocking on the door started again followed: “Do you want your tea hot or cold?”

At this point, Paul couldn’t hold on to his load anymore and started the discharging process…

Receiving no answer from Paul, the knocking on the door started again: “Do you want your tea with milk or sugar?”

Now, feeling relieved, Paul opened the toilet door to see who was the culprit made fun of him and as he opened the toilet door…

Some tea leaves, sugar, milk, a tea cup, a tea spoon together with hot and cold water flew towards Paul’s face as they were being thrown by someone waiting for Paul to come out. Paul narrowly escaped the tea cup but he was hit by the rest of the stuffs flunked at him.

Feeling surprised yet angry, Paul searched every corner of the toilet but found not a single soul was around except he heard the disembodied voice lingered in the air: “I hope you have enjoyed your tea, Sir!”

Later, when I visited Paul at his place, he mentioned his strange encounter and asked my opinion. So, I told Paul: “Next time. You just said no tea for you and a thank you.”

Midnight Ghost Talks (四人夜话)

Do you believe that when I say not only human beings like to listen to ghost stories; the ghosts too like to listen to ghost stories!

My old college mates and I altogether foul guys met for the first time after we left our college for almost 20 years. So we arranged for a small barbecue gathering in Chong’s banana plantation; nothing too formal suffice one night to catch up our lost times. There were only four of us, Chong, Lee, Roy and me attended that short gathering which started at about 7pm. After rounds of chatting, eating and drinking; almost everyone felt filled up to the throat. Sensing the eating was slowing down, Chong suggested we gather together to talk about our missing years.

That piece of banana plantation was our hideout during our college time where we slept and fish at a stream that flowed through the middle of the plantation. I once saw a banana spirit bathing in that stream but that was a long time ago. So said, we started to talk amongst ourselves about our individual developments, ups and downs. Soon, it approached midnight and perhaps we have talked what we need to talk; there was a long silence…

Since we all made a pledge that no one should leave the banana plantation which was just behind Chong’s house, Roy suggested that each of us start talking ghost stories. First was to chill out hot tropical night in May, then and again; all of us knew that we all liked hearing ghost stories ourselves. Before we begun, Chong laid down a rule: no one should talk about the beautiful banana spirit in his plantation since we all heard the story being told and retold many times.

Lee started the ball rolling:

“My dad owned an old saw mill in Kampar and I used to help him managed the saw mill. Prior to Chinese New Year, it was a customary practice for traditional Chinese company to pay the workers two month’s pay in advance for the workers to celebrate their new year. After the pay day, the saw mill shall normally be shut for half a month or so until the last day of Chinese New Year.

A supervisor, Hock received his pay and instead of returning to his family, he went to Genting Highland casino to gamble until he was penniless. Felling shameful, Hock returned to the saw mill and hung himself there. Unfortunately speaking, due to the extremely long holiday, when everyone returned to the saw mill to resume working; Hock highly decayed decapitated body was found on the floor. Apparently, his head was separated along with the decay of his flesh.

The saw mill started to be haunted by Hock’s restless ghost and workers were afraid of returning to work. Soon, my dad had to close the saw mill down and moved the operation to Sabah. Later, a youth sneaked into the saw mill but he never came out. His parents came to my dad to open the saw mill gate to look for the lad. And, that lad too was found hung himself at the same spot where Hock was once hung there…”

Roy continued:

“My old house back in Matang was the battlefield between two underground society: Yee Hin and Hai Shan more than a century ago. The old temple behind my house was built by Yee Hin group and that place was the execution area for Hai Shan prisoners. The Yee Hin group had a very cruel way of killing their prisoners at that time: first, the Yee Hin flag would be put on the ground and those Hai Shan followers to be executed would be asked to kneel down facing the Yee Hin flag, then the Yee Hin executioners would use a piece of sharpened bamboo to pierce into the throat of Hai Shan people and let their blood flow onto the Yee Hin flag. This was called ‘flag sacrificial’.

I don’t know how many casualties were there during the Larut Matang Civil War, but during full moon; those restless spirits of Hai Shan followers would roam around the old datuk shrine. Witnesses claimed to have seen those spirits appeared with a piece of bamboo stuck at their throats…”

Chong said:

“There was no datuk shrine at the back of my house as you all probably know. One evening, my Myanmar worker passed through the back of my house and he suddenly saw a tall old man with long beard in white looking at him and said that he wanted a shrine to be built at that location. While the tall old man was speaking, he used his long index finger to point at the location where the current shrine is. Or else bad thing will occur.

The worker was a brave man and he wasn’t too superstitious either, so he shouted four letter words at the old man and the figure suddenly disappeared. My worker did tell me the incident and I thought I would set up the shrine later since my mom also saw the same white figure at night.

Normally my workers don’t work on Sunday, the bad thing is that when they don’t work; they like to drink. And when a few of them got drunk, you could almost smell trouble. Likewise, on that day, a few of my workers got drunk and involved in a fight. And, that particular Burmese worker was killed over $5.

Though people said the worker asked for it, I believed that it was the doing of the old man in white. So, I quickly set up the shrine and no more strange things happened ever since.

Finally, it was my turn. When I was saying: “You know there is a way to put a banana spirit into a bottle…” A disembodied voice came from a far: “LIEW, YOU SHOULD NOT SPEAK ABOUT THIS!!”

All of us looked at each other and we all decided to retreat into the house and spent the night. No one wanted to venture outside until day breaks…

As we were hurried into the house, I said: “If you want to know my ghost stories, please check out my MagicSEA blog!!”

I can assure you that the voice was heard by all four of us and my story was voted the best, just a joke of course.

Tok Batin (拿督巴丁)

Tok Batin was an aboriginal chief lived in a village adjacent to my grandpa’s rubber plantation. His grave was located on a slope of a hill at the back of this aboriginal village. This hill was thought to be a sacred place for the natives and outsiders were totally forbidden to enter its compound. The natives believed that if anyone enters their sacred land and disturbed the resting of their ancestors, the spirits may get angry and cause some natural disasters or even epidemic.

We all know that kids know no boundary. As a kid, my play mates and I used to venture into the aborigine’s holy land especially when we were chasing monitor lizards with our dogs. Since there was a small stream flowing at the foot of the hill, we also went to the aboriginal graveyard to catch edible frogs at night. Most of the time, we were unnoticed by those aborigines but if they ever found that those mischievous kids had trespassed their forbidden land, they would not hesitate to chase us out; or at times we were also being apprehended and sent back to our relatives. Of course, the kids would get another rounds of scolding while as a gesture of apology; the aborigines would be given tobacco, rice, sugar and salt. The intrusion cases were normally solved amicably as we were pretty close to those natives and at times they would bring out some jungle products to sell to us too.

Tok Batin was initially just a long forgotten figure, an incident made him famous around that piece of land. One evening in the 70’s, the villagers rested in front of their house after dinner. Suddenly an old man came from nowhere asking the villagers to give him some water. Naturally, some gave and some just ignored him. During that night, heavy rain started to fall for 3 days. When the rain has finally stopped before the villagers can celebrate themselves, the village suddenly besieged by sudden flash floods. It was said that only those folks who gave the old man water survived.

Afterwards, an old village shaman said that the old man was the manifestation of Tok Batin to remove those unworthy living in the village. Later, a rubber tapper passed by Tok Batin’s grave on route to his durian plantation. It was around 8pm and the rubber tapper were to keep night watch on his durians. The surrounding around the aboriginal graveyard was pitched dark. So it was a norm for night travellers to bring a torchlight along for illumination purposes. As the man was walking past Tok Batin’s grave, he saw an old man standing in the centre of his path at a distance away. He immediately used his torchlight to shine at the figure and the old man immediately disappeared. As soon as he diverted the torchlight, the figure of old man reappeared. The poor man got the shock of his life and he immediately turn his back and ran as fast as he could to his home. As I heard, this man was sick for one whole week.

I passed through Tok Batin’s grave many times following my uncle to his durian plantation. The last time I saw, the grave was already engulfed by a huge banyan tree. This added a sense of eeriness for passers-by. The villagers believed that this banyan tree was ‘keramat’ or ‘holy’ as the tree has given a second life to Tok Keramat because his soul has possessed this tree and continued to watch over his beloved villagers.

Once a villager who was not superstitious tried to chop down the banyan tree but as soon as his axe struck the tree roots, bloodlike saps rushed out accompanied with cries as if someone was in pain. The villager panicked and immediately returned to his house. He was said to fall sick on that night and died a few years later.

Later, another villager hired a bulldozer wanting to topple the banyan tree but the bulldozer died off once it approached the banyan tree. After a few tries, the villager gave up and left the tree alone. Since the sighting of a huge tall white figure were quite often, local Chinese community built a small shrine to pacify the spirit and called it ‘Datuk Batin’. Before I left the piece of rubber plantation, many people still went to Datuk Batin to pay their respect while asking for lucky numbers. I am not quite sure if the Datuk Batin is still around today though.

Dzongchen View Of Spirits (大圆满见鬼)

All of the religions in this world would teach us to stay away from demons, devils, evil spirits, ghosts etc. In fact, in some religions; fighting demonic forces has become the majority part of their doctrines. And, that too means a lucrative business for the production and selling of religious products. The normal treatments towards spirits are fear, fear and nothing but fear. In fact, all of those spirits should be destroyed or being cast to hell for punishment.

I am not to judge which is the correct way to treat spirits, but suffice to discuss how these spiritual entities are treated in the eyes of Dzongchen practitioners.

In Dzongchen, every matter is started with ‘view’. And only after establishing the correct view that a matter can be tackled swiftly and correctly.

Spirits, good or bad are treated as the manifestation of our own mind which are external to us. Since spirits are only the reflexions of our own mind, now we must understand that the nature of our mind has no characteristic; hence empty. By empty means that our mind changes according the stimulations we received from our environment which has no own characteristic of its own: when we are praised, we are happy or otherwise.

So said, in order to destroy those external demonic forces, we should first subdue the fear in our own mind instead of praying to external forces for help. Even there is a saying that goes: “The God will help those who help themselves.”

Now that we have viewed spirits are merely the reflection of our mind, then there is no need to fear or pity them. We should just look into our mind and rest in our natural state without creating any new thoughts. Then all the demons in our heart will vanish automatically along with our fear.

Actually, all of the sadhana practices: Vajrakilaya, Dorje Dorlo, Black Thorma, Hayagriva and etc. refer to the same ‘view’. Of course, if a practitioner has already aware that the external world is the reflection of his/her mind, there is no need for those sadhana practices. He/she can just fall into his/her natural state of relaxation. In Dzongchen, we don’t use meditation as meditation means a little too deliberate and tense up our lively mind.

It is only through a relaxed but not to drowsy mind that we can become fearless as our yidam (deity) and hence entering the state of Great Perfection.

To sum up, Dzongchen treats out outside world as the manifestation of our inner mind. Instead of performing all those unnecessary rituals to get rid of the demons in our mind, perhaps it is more effective just to lay our busy mind to rest. And, let our mind stays that way forever. The state of Great Perfection is none other than resting in our natural and tranquil state of equilibrium. Apparently, those people who like to constantly keep their mind busy will not be able to achieve Buddhahood in the view of Dzongchen.

Ghost Games (玩鬼)

Games played in the hope to see and experience ghosts were once popular before the advent of computer games and smart phones in Asia, especially amongst the Chinese youths. Believe it or not, the girls are normally bolder than the boys in thrill seeking activities now and then. There are actually many types of games people would play to prove that they are brave enough in facing the spiritual world. I have seen people playing many types of ghost games: Ouija boards and variants, simple conjuration games, incantations and etc.

Personally speaking, I don’t encourage youngsters playing this type of ghost hunting games because many of those games involved autosuggestion techniques. For example, before the game, players are told of what to expect and what can be seen. With simple suggestive techniques, players’ mind would start to play tricks on themselves. If one of those panicked stricken participants cried out hysterically, then everyone in the team would be frightened and run away. When asked afterwards, almost all participants would give the same answer that the reason they run away was due to fright and not that they have seen a ghost.

I can assure you that if anyone could just stay put on the hearing of strange noise or seeing white shadows, and not run away; then those strange sightings or sounds would be gone in a jiffy. So said, our human nature is that we would automatically react when others have reacted. This is the same as when you are driving on a straight road, and another car runs parallel with you. If you stepped onto the accelerator, then the other guy will also go a little faster. One car must slow down or accident will definitely occur.

A lady I know, Lisa joined a TV paranormal shows years ago to play a ghost game in an old abandoned school building. The school was said to be haunted because it was built on a piece of graveyard and added to that, a female teacher was said to have hung herself in the toilet. The organizer even invited a master who first ‘pre-programmed’ Lisa’s mind on what to expect during the game session.

In the ghost game, Lisa was asked to carry a white lantern to enter the most haunted place of that school, i.e. the school female toilet. In the toilet, Lisa was asked to chant some chanting to call out whatever spirits there might be. Then, these spooks would be led into a class room with a few big mirrors, a stool and many burning candles. Lisa was asked to sit on the stool and to fold a few pieces of joss paper while calling out for the ghosts to come to get her.

Everything seemed to be okay as recalled by Lisa before the master called Lisa through walkie-talkie and informed Lisa that there is a ghost behind her. Starting from that point, Lisa started to feel that someone was rubbing her back. The more she thought of the ghost, the scarier Lisa became until she cried out loud hysterically. And, Lisa was subsequently ‘rescued’ by the TV crews.

It was a well done on the TV crews, but the horrifying experienced lingered long after Lisa returned home. She kept on dreaming a few old men in Qing Dynasty (清朝) costumes staring at her and that she could not sleep for days. Later, Lisa’s father asked me to have a look at Lisa’s condition. After looking at Lisa for a while, I told her that all her visions are due to auto-suggestive instructions given by the master. If she was to attract the hung ghost, then she wouldn’t have attracted the non-related old men.

Lisa still wasn’t too convinced on what I said, so I said to her: “If you are still scared, then you come and sleep with me…”

Of course, she never come to my place and I certainly didn’t expect her to do what I have just said. Maybe I was scarier than those ghosts, Lisa never experienced further ghostly disturbances again. I further asked Lisa to decline any future invitation to take part in these types of paranormal shows ever again for the sake of herself and her parents. The audiences like to watch Lisa’s panicked stricken expressions but really, this is not too good for her mental developments.

Ghost Story From Down Under (澳洲的鬼故事)

I am intrigued if ghosts would appear differently in Australia. On second thought, maybe not.

Paul returned from Australia and when asked, he told me his weird experience when he was studying in Sydney.

While Paul was in Sydney, he stayed with a family from Hong Kong in a high class residential area. Most of the time Paul’s host family didn’t stay there except their youngest 18-year-old son, Eric who was taking undergraduate study. Since Eric’s parents would not be around for most of the time, Paul became Eric’s best companion. Since both of them studied in the same university, Eric who was given a car would give Paul a ride when both of them have the same lectures. Otherwise, Paul would have cycled to the university alone...

During one of the semester examinations, Paul was studying for his term paper in a room upstairs. It was nearly lunch time, Paul thought of making himself some sandwiches to fill his stomach. So, he went downstairs to get to the kitchen. When he passed the living room on his way to the kitchen, Paul saw a pair of legs rested on the tea table facing the TV set. The TV was switched on but no program was broadcasted. The screen only shown snowflake patterns indicating no broadcasting or channel not available at that time.

Paul couldn’t see who the pair of legs belonged to as the person was lying in a bench sofa whose body blocked by the sofa backrest. He thought that must be Eric as there were two of them staying in the house at that time. So, Paul called up to Eric: “Hey! Do you want some sandwiches? I am making some for myself…” Hearing no response, he thought Eric had fallen asleep. Without having a second thought, Paul decided to go on with making his meal.

After having lunch, Paul went upstairs and again he passed the living room. The legs were still rested on the tea table, Paul shrugged and ran up the staircase to continue with his revision. Perhaps after half an hour or so, Paul noticed a familiar car drove in to the car porch; it was Eric’s car alright. Since Paul’s room window was facing front, he could see whoever came into the house.

A few minutes later, sounds of people ascending the staircase was heard and then Eric came into Paul’s room. Paul turned his head and asked: “I thought I saw you watching TV in the living room?”

“Nay, mate. I went out early in the morning because the professor changed the lecture time this morning…” Eric answered while looking at his watch.

Paul was a little puzzled as he was quite sure he saw someone was sitting in the couch facing the TV set. Maybe Eric noticed Paul’s bewilderment, he continued to say:

“When my dad first bought the house, we saw garlics were being spread on the floor all over the house. The property agent didn’t want to say anything about the garlics… Sometimes the TV in the living room would be switched on for no apparent reasons. Once I was passing through the living room, I saw an Aussie kid sat in the sofa opposite that TV… I am sure you too have seen this kid or else you won’t give me that kind of expression!”