Looking For A New Apartment (买楼快择)

Buying your first apartment might be the single most important investment choice that you have to make these days because once committed, you could be financially tied for another 10 or 20 years.

Most people like me can only be contented with getting an apartment in a metropolitan city. So, I would just share my own way of avoiding 'problematic' unit. By 'problematic' I mean 'haunted'.

It is best that you can bring a compass to visit the premise of your choice but this is not always possible not to mention that such a method is clumsy.

Once I audited two adjacent apartment units in a row. The first one showed that the house was facing south. When I audited the second unit, the compass needle took an about turn and showed the direction as north. So, the second unit is definitely problematic.

So said, to many others; bringing out a compass maybe embarrassing. The next tell tale sign is to look along the common corridor. If most of the apartment units has some kind of earth god or heaven god templates or the like, then it is likely that some spirits maybe present.

Then you should pay much attention to the ventilation in the corridor and later inside the apartment. If you notice some musty scent, that means the air is not circulating enough. As per rule of thumb, still air accumulates spirits. 

It is best to avoid such an apartment unless you want to invest in a new ventilation system.

Other than that, if you are accompanied by an real estate agent, then see if he/she is doing anything funny. For example: knocking on the door and pressing the door bell. If your agent did any sort of actions as described, then be wary of the unit please.

Before you enter the room, first please just step just one foot in and one foot outside the brim of the main door. Then close your eyes and notice any emotions you might have: happy, sad or just neutral.

After that, please pull a chair and sit in the middle of the living room and notice your feeling. Since we spent much of our time sitting in chairs, it is worthwhile just to invest a few minutes to sit down and that will make you feel the environment much clearer.

Avoid an apartment that is too near a big tree. If the view of tree top can be seen from the apartment or if huge tree roots have extended towards the front door, then the unit is likely to be haunted. Not to mention that fallen tree branches can be a safety hazard during rainy days.

Many parents like to bring their babies when choosing a new apartment. My advice is that we must avoid using our babies as guinea pigs. While it is true that babies are very sensitive to the presence of spirits, they are easily scared. When those babies really see ghost, they will feel frighten and cry out loud.

Since babies have weaker souls, they are easy prays to those earth bound spirits in the apartment or its surrounding. If babies suffered spiritual attack and the parents are not aware, the baby may be possessed by spirits that might deter the babies' mental development.

The best time to visit an apartment is early in the morning and in the evening. These are the best timing to give you an idea on what you are investing.

Gamblers & Cup Spirit (赌徒与碟仙)

I don't gamble but most of my friends are gamblers. The point is that if you don't gamble, you will not be able to understand those odd behaviors of gamblers do to get themselves 'lucky'.

A couple of weeks ago, I was drinking a mug of chilled beer in a bar when a few 4D fans barged in and gathered around me. So we drank together and after a while, I was being dragged half forced and half intimidated by those buggers to a graveyard.

Apparently my pals wanted to ask for lucky numbers from the spirits but afraid of possible consequences. Hence I was somehow 'invited' to provide some 'protection' to them from those evil spirits...

There were a total 4 of us. The target grave was the grave of a pregnant lady who passed away for less than 49 days.

When everything was set, I just sat beside the grave stone and Ah Boy laid out a piece of paper inscribed with alphabets, numbers, 'yes', 'no' and a 'home' positions. The players were Ah Boy, Kow and Jack. The three of them put their middle fingers onto a small plate inscribed with a arrow head to indicate the choice of letter or number the spirit has chosen.

The trio started to chant: "Spirit of plate, spirit of plate where are you?"

After a while, the plate started to move among the characters.

Ah Boy asked: "What are the sure numbers for this 4D lucky draw?"

The spirit answered: "Don't know."

Ah Boy was agitated and start scolding 4 letter words: "Fxxk! How can you don't know!? You dare to call yourself spirit!?"

Ah Boy went on cursing and swearing non-stop for many rounds meanwhile the small plate just sat still on the paper motionless.

Seeing that Ah Boy could not get any answers from the spirit, I made a hand gesture and chanted an exorcism mantra and then removed the plate.

The trio decided to call it a night and I too was happy to leave the company.

A week later, Kow came to my house to tell me that the three of them suffered from pneumonia one day after returning from the grave. During that period, all three dreamed of a pregnant lady pointed her finger at them while scolding dirty words.

Kow wanted to know if the spirit of the lady had left he and his pals alone.

After sending off my guardian spirits to investigate, the respond I got was: "No ghosts want any business with the gamblers!"

So I rest my case.

The Cursed Swingset (不祥的秋千)

Children's playground fitted with seesaw, merry-go-round, swingset, slide. chin-up bars and etc. is normally a fun place for small children to play but it can be dangerous too if those facilities are not being maintained properly.

There was an inauspicious swingset with another kind of 'danger' at the place I stayed when I was in Kuala Kangsar. The said swingset was once located at a playground behind my house. It was said to be inauspicious because two kids who had played on the swingset were rammed over by cars in separate incidents, and a pregnant lady suffered miscarriage.

I once sat on the swingset and it seemed to be able to swing automatically and at first I felt fun. But the swingset continued to swing violently and it couldn't stop. I was very scared then until I cried out loud. Luckily my dad was beside the swingset and he managed to stop it with the help of people around. Since then I dare not approach the swingset.

Today, the inauspicious swingset together with the small playground were demolished and a public hall was built instead.

The problem with the swingset might originated on the piece of land itself. It was rumoured that many folks were killed and tortured by the Imperial Army during the WWII period there.

A local resident, Chen said that one night after having supper with his friends in a restaurant outside of the housing estate. He saw an old lady carrying a very big bag walking by the playground. Chen wanted to help but no matter how fast he chased after the old lady, he couldn't get near her...

A lady teacher said: "I  returned from night class one day and saw a couple squatting by that swingset. The lady kept holding the man's head as if trying to put it in place. Due to curiosity, I approached the couple to see if I could be of any help... then I saw the man's head was severed and blood oozed from the cut. I yelled out from the bottom of my lungs and fainted. When I woke up, the couple was gone."

A couple moved into a house opposite the playground. The husband worked in a construction site and the wife was pregnant and stayed in the house. Everyday, the lady would sit on the swingset waiting for her husband to return.

One evening, the lady sat on the swingsat as usual and the swing started to swing violently. She panicked and yelled for help. Sadly, before help arrived; the lady was thrown off the swingset and knocked unconscious.

She was sent to the district hospital but suffered first from miscarriage and then died of excessive lost of blood.  Sadly too that her husband was killed in the construction site by a fallen brick.

A few days later, many residents saw the couple at the swingset. The lady sat on the swingset and the husband pushed the swing. 

Two kids came to the playground to play and both of them were rammed over by a drunk driver while on their way back after sat on the swing. The mishap occurred on the road beside the playground.

Since then no locals would get near the swingset after dark.

Killer Underground Car Park (地下停车场)

Lands in metropolitan cities are expensive so in order to achieve the maximum cost over performance ratio, developers would resort to build multi-story buildings so as to achieve maximum profits. So it is not uncommon to find sky scrapers with multi-story underground car parks in major cities of the world.

With all four sides tightly sealed by concrete walls, basements are normally used as storage area or car parks. Since basements are much lower than the outside ground level, water proofing and discharging facilities must be able to handle a sudden inflow of water or big problems will occur.

Of course, any engineering design will have a capacity limit to how much water a pump can discharge. When there is a sudden inrush of water due to excessive heavy rain fall or in the event that the pump failed to operate; then we can imagine what would happen to those folks trapped inside their vehicles in an underground car park.

Talking about underground car park reminds me of an incident occurred some time ago in a private condominium in West Point, Hong Kong. In that mishap, a couple was found drowned in their luxury car which parked in the condo underground car park.

It was when a 30km/h typhoon besieging Hong Kong and heavy rain started to pour, a couple parked their car in the said underground car park and had some intimate act inside the vehicle. To them, this maybe the best time to get intimate as the car park was almost empty hence no one would disturb them.

The love indulged couple was certainly oblivious about the weather condition outside as the meteorological department has put up Hurricane Signal No. 10.

Typhoon Aere was gathering momentum besieging North Point bringing a large quantity of rain water. Strong wind caused the sea water to back flow onto the shore and flooding any low land area along its passage, including the car park where the couple was in.

Aere left Hong Kong with severe damages after besieging there for 10 hours or so.

It was only after a few days that workers managed to restart the flood pump to clear the water in the car park and the corpse of the couple was later found inside their ill fated car.

One month later, a doctor who happened to stay in that condominium found there was a pool of mud water coupled with the foul smell of rotten flesh accumulated in his car. This is not the first time such mysterious liquid is found present.

Feeling upset, the doctor went to the management to complain but he was told that he was not the sole victim of that strange liquid. There were others too complaint of the presence of those smelly liquid in their vehicles.

Strangely speaking, all CCTV recording did not show who was the culprit until one day...

Wong went to the basement car park to get his car, just as when he approached his car; he saw the shadow of a couple looked like having intimate act.

Angered by what he saw, Wong immediately rushed towards his car, opened the door and shouted: "Don't fxxk in my... "

Before Wong could finish the word 'car', he felt a chill breeze rushed through him and he gave a shiver and swallowed the word.

When Wong took a second look, there was no sign of the couple but a pool of smelly mud water!

Later Wong combined with other tenants held a deliverance ritual for the restless couple and strangely too, after the ritual, though the ghostly shadow of a couple continued to be seen in the car park; they did not enter any cars.

Of course, personally I would shy away from parking in basement car park when the weather is not good. Believe it or not, that is up to you...

Restless Social Escort (不休的应招女)

There are many tactics that foreign social escorts employ to avoid being nabbed by the authorities. For example they would marry to a local, or these escorts would stay in an isolated area such as oil palm plantation. Another place would be renting units in flats in metropolitan cities and disguise as housewives.

Jane was a freelance Chinese social escort operated in KL downtown areas. She rented a small unit in the metropolitan city and paid someone to 'marry' her. 

All went well for a few years and Jane accumulated some handsome saving thanks to those generous and lustful customers. Since Jane already had a family back in home in mainland China, she sent all her earnings back.

A month before Jane decided to call it a day in KL, she suddenly received a message from her husband that he wanted to divorce her as this husband of her has found his new love. Perhaps Jane was not heart broken due to the divorce but all her 'hard earned' money, she chose to end her life by putting on red cloth and jumping off the balcony of her unit.

No one knows why Jane worn red before committing suicide. Maybe she wanted to transform into vengeful ghosts to seek revenge?

A few weeks later, a few taxi drivers gathered at the ground floor of the flat to drink and chat after work. One of the drivers, Beng was quite drunk and he decided to call it a day. So he bade his companions good night and staggered towards the flat lift.

When the lift door opened, Beng saw a very pretty woman in red inside the lift compartment. Perhaps Beng was attracted to her beauty, his eyes were transfixed on her. The woman also looked at Beng and Beng somehow became enchanted and followed the woman to her unit.

Beng spent a night at the woman's place but when he awoke in the morning, Beng found himself being locked inside out in an empty unit...

Since then, some taxi drivers continued to be enticed by the red cloth woman to have intimate act whether in a bush or in an empty unit in that flat. Since the taxi drivers didn't suffer any loses, people just treat the strange encounters just erotic dreams.

May be it is the working of restless Jane meant to seek revenge at her husband since he too was a taxi driver? Perhaps too that Jane still is not remorced even after she is dead?

The Pet Of Mountain God (山神的宠物)

Basically speaking, everything ranging from stones to flora and fauna in the mountain can be considered as mountain god's pets including those mountain hikers lost forever in the mountain. The mysterious leklai is just one of those pets of mountain god in Indochina just to name one example.

People believe that whatever is taken from the mountain, the mountain will also take something from the person and this is a fair deal. Give and take is just part and parcel of the law of nature of our daily life.

So said, there are people who earn a living by hunting and harvesting jungle products and they do not believe in those superstitious matters.

Ben was a born hunter once lived in Tapah and he used to enter the jungle to hunt for wild boars. When old local folks saw Ben carrying his hunting rifle, they would say: "Oh Ben, have mercy! Your gun can kill animals but not the mountain god!"

But Ben was not superstitious, he normally shook his head and marched on without bothering those cynical remarks.

Ben liked to enter the forest at dusk to hunt for fruit bats as this is the time when those big bats came out to feed. I have tasted some of those juicy bat meat and could still remember them until today. Jogging my memory, roasted bat meat are best to be consumed with black beer.

When local economy started to boom in the 90's, exotic food became in demand and Ben turned himself into a professional hunter and spent most of his time in the jungle. 

A restaurant owner even claimed that Ben was not human as once Ben has entered the mountain, he would become an animal hence under the coverage of jungle foliage; Ben could hunt more preys than any ordinary human being.

One evening, Ben saw a wild boar consuming some oil palm seeds and without any hesitation, he fire a shot at the boar. The wild boar fell onto the ground but managed to raise up and escaped into a bush while snorting in pain.

Ben was in hot pursue and followed the wild boar into its nest and found that he has injured a sow. There were a few small small boar feeding on the sow's milk. The dying sow looked at Ben as if begging for his mercy. This is the moment Ben hated most as it is a taboo for hunters to kill any animals with puppies. 

Just as when Ben was in a state of hesitation, the sow died. Since the small piglets could not survive anyway; Ben decided to kill them all...

Now that Ben has broken hunter's three taboos: don't kill puppies and milking mother animal, and don't extinct the animal source. He returned to his house with a heavy heart.

That night, Ben told his wife about his experience earlier and added that he probably could not live long. 

A few days later, Ben was found dead during his sleep...

A few months later, rumors of Ben has transformed into a giant wild boar and returned to rule the jungle he used to hunt when he was alive. Some hunters even claimed to have seen this 150kg wild boar ran across their path.

People believed that Ben has become one of mountain god's pet. 

Maybe it is true that whatever taken from the mountain will return to the mountain...

A Siamese Betta Khata (斗鱼口咒)

The Thai calls a betta fish as 'pla-kad' not 'pla-kid' which is something else.

If you practice Thai magic, then you should also keep some betta fish as not only they are beautiful to be looked at, they too can boost your courage and protect your house from black magic.

Old Thais would empower their betta fish with a special mantra so as to make their betta more fiercer so as to ward off evil spirits and victorious in any betta competitions. As far as I am aware, the origin of this mantra is so old that it is untraceable however.

The translation of such khata is as follows:

"Oh! You are a real fighter, the best fighter!

You are super fierceful hero, the hero of all fishes in the rivers!

Your crystall shinning scales are as if diamond made armors!

Your four fangs are as sharp as spears!

Oh! You are an outstanding and invulnerable fish, nothing can defeat you!"

Practitioners believe that by reciting the above mantra, the betta fish and its owner can unite in spirit and communicate with each other.

I used to recite this mantra when feeding and training my betta fish some dog gone years ago. My betta fish did show some kind of aggression after hearing the mantra so I believe that it did awakened the power of those betta fish.

One small black betta bit my finger when I chanted the mantra and poked at it. Though I was not hurt in any way, the bite gave me a sensation of electric shock.

This mantra was written on a slip of yellowish paper many years ago and I almost completely forgotten about it until I pulled out my old manuscript. 

If you keep betta fish too, then perhaps this mantra is useful.