Flying chinamen , cleavers and ghosts

I can remember the night I first met a ghost. He was a china man with a long pigtail. His eyes were bloodshot red, his lips curled back to show his sharp white teeth. His short arms held a cleaver and his rage was felt more than seen.

It was a typical Hollywood nightmare scene with thunder , lightning and lashings of rain. My mum had just returned from somewhere and it was nearly 9pm ..I remember as she was putting me to sleep ..when Ah Chan our house help at the time ran into the main house screaming that the Kwei had come to her window and was pounding it to be let in. I was terrified that the Kwei had actually entered her being as she flailed her arms, hair flying all over her own face, the whites of her eyes overtaking the black..spittle flew in all directions as she screamed and described the ghost who had come knocking on her window with a cleaver.

My mother very quickly took her to another room and told me to play on my own. Ha ! Play on my own!... outside my window the lightning was fast and furious and through the branches of the star fruit tree I thought I saw a shadowy form armed with a cleaver.. I shot out of bed and ran down the hall . I watched as my mother poured out some brown stuff.. which I later learnt was Brandy and tried all manner of ways to calm AH Chan down.

Through her gulps of Brandy Ah Chan described the ghost .. He had come from China to seek his fortune in the Tin mines of Malaysia. Every month he had sent his money home to his parents in China . Then one day, a friend who had enticed him with drink and gambling, tricked him into investing in a piece of land which eventually turned out to be an acre’s worth of swamp. In a fit of rage and anger the Ghost man bought a brand new cleaver and went to his friend’s home.. and with supernatural strength he killed every one in that home and placed each family members 'head in a grisly fashion on the Chinese altar of the home. Then he calmly tied a hang man’s noose in the middle of the family room or the house and hung himself.

That was a lot to get out of a ghost in such a short encounter.. what had Ah Chan done ? Had tea with the ghost and let it lay bare it’s soul to her?.. My mother must have thought the same thing as she asked “ AH Chan , how do you know all this ?” “ Ah yah Tau Kay Neo ( Boss Lady ), He is my sister’s husband lah. When he die my sister so shame she no want to bury him. She say let the police throw him into a box enough. He bring so big shame now she got no face to go outside. But I tell her he your husband . He ghost will be lost if we no bury him properly. People die like that also people. You his wife must give him proper funeral. Ah Yoh, you see now his ghost no peace . Every night come and tell me to ask my sister bury him. Tonight, maybe he cannot stand anymore come to my window! Ah yah hou sway ! ( so cursed )”

“ You know the only way now is I go to see his people. He got some cousin in Batu Pahat . I give them some money to ask the Chinese priest to pray for him. But I only got address .. there got no telephone. Ah yah, so mah fan ( inconvient), but Tau Kay Neo if I don’t do like this he come to your house every night or..please you give me 2 days to go to Batu Pahat look for his people.”

The next morning my mother gave Ah Chan an advance in her salary and sent her off to the bus station. I half wondered who the ghost would speak to now that she was gone and wanted to ask Ah Chan if she had remembered to tell her brother in law she was going to be away.. what if he came again tonight? Who’s window would he bang on?

I stayed awake all night . I listened to imagined sounds of screams in the night, looked for tell tale signs of shadows with pigtails. Once I thought I heard an insistent tapping at the window and ran to take refuge in my parents big bed. That experience opened my mind to the “ other “ world.

From Yusoff the gardener I learnt about Pontianaks living in the Banana trees in our back garden. His wife Ramla told me of nights when they could hear the Pontianaks screaming like Banshees especially when she had just given birth ( Pontianaks are women ghosts who have lost their children at childbirth or have commited suicide while pregnant.. they were female vampires that specialised in seducing men ). If a new born baby was not well taken care of the Pontianak would come and steal it’s soul leaving it to grow up like a zombie.

At school my friends taught me that we could talk to ghosts.. using the Ouiji Board. My own mother when she was very upset with me would shout “ When I die I will come back and haunt you. Now ask you to learn to cook .You don’t wan. Wait next time I die you want me to wake up from my grave to slave over you hand and foot!”

Or an old favourite “ When I die I will bring my mother and father to show them what an ungrateful and naughty child you are “ she used to rant. My young mind was filled with impossibly possible things. Flying ghosts, cleaver yielding china men, beautiful yet dreadful pregnant dead women…they soon became oddly familiar . The Malays would tell me stories about the Ponitanaks, the Chinese always had violent and tragic ghosts and the Indians…their ghosts inhabited trees, lakes and forests!! I grew up very aware and always looking for something I felt must be lurking around.. especially if I were in Asia.. because in America, the ghosts were different.