Malaysia’s Ghost Ghouls

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

No matter where you travel in Asia and the Pacific you hear about ghosts and demons, vampires and werewolves, pontians, poltergeists and monsters of all shapes and sizes. Whether people believe the thousands of stories that circulate about ‘the supernatural‘ or not is one matter. Personally, I have an open mind. I have lived in too many countries where the spirit world is an integral part of living not to at least listen.

If the western world has its ‘spooks and demons’, in number and ferocity they pale into significance against the plethora of hantu, pontianak, hantu jenglot, songkei, bakal, pelak, toyol and djinns that make up the supernatural pantheons of Asia.

South East Asian countries pay cautious respect to the ‘supernatural’. Strange occurrences can be ‘explained’ by citing the presence of one ghostly being or another. Almost everyone in Singapore, Indonesian and Malaysia can tell you about places which are ‘known’, usually beyond all shadow of a doubt, to be haunted.

Every Malaysian has at least one story about the Genting Highlands. Who hasn’t heard about the tortured spirits in Pudu Jail?

What about the apparitions that haunt Kellie’s Castle in Ipoh, to say nothing of those in the Blue House in Penang?

And what about the known haunts of the creatures of the night at Singapore’s Changi? Old colonial mansions are favourite haunts, so to speak. The Japanese occupation always a fertile ground for the spirit-ually inclined. Hardly one old (pre war) school in the country does not have a good ghost story told about it.

But not every ghostly tale had ‘colonial’ roots: far from it. A tragic event in KL was the collapse in 1993 of the Highland Towers in Ampang. Perhaps it was natural that stories spread about how the ruins are haunted. People tell you that you can hear the voices of the dead at night and that ghostly figures flitter amongst the ruins. 

One story even has it that a woman hailed a cab late at night and asked to be taken to the site. She alighted from the taxi and the cabby, not happy at being in the area, quickly drove away. He paused for a cigarette to settle his nerves and looked on the back seat. She had left her handbag there. He opened it to see if he could find an address and return it to her. It was full of blood!

I have a very good friend who leaves one block from the now derelict site. He refuses to go there; he is the executive of a large Malaysian company.

I mentioned Pudu Prison earlier. So much is made of the ghosts of the executed. Here is where such stories get interesting. How many people were executed there? None actually. The executions were carried out elsewhere. 

Nonetheless their spirits are rumoured to walk its rotting halls and parapets. Maybe there are some ghosts there. After all, how many inmates died from ‘incidents’, either at the hands of fellow prisoners or less gentle guards…?

Kuala Lumpur’s suburbs have variable reputations. Bukit Tungku is not a favourite spot for some unless you are a ghost aficionado. People blame that reputation on a gruesome murder in 1997 when a woman was hacked into tiny pieces and dumped there. That information is not immediately readily available from real estate agents operating in that area.

Bangsar gives other Kuala Lumpur (KL) suburbs a run for the title of the capital’s most haunted. It has more abandoned bungalows than most other suburbs and in KL and Selangor that is saying something! Where buildings are abandoned, rumours start (like the spirits) to fly! Go to the bungalow in Jalan Pantai just on the left past the junction with Jalan Taman Pantai, overlooking the University of Malaya. Can you feel the chill!  Why? A guard ran amok there in 2001 killing the children in the house and dumping their bodies into the water tank. Haunted? No one has lived in the house since—no one who is still alive, of course.

Go to Ipoh and, to get your spirits rolling, start with a night-time tour. First, take the road from Ipoh to Tambun. Friends tell me that they have seen an old lady floating alongside the road about seven kilometres from town. So many people report seeing her that I was disappointed that I did not! She is always walking—sorry, floating—towards Tambun but never actually makes it. Purists allege that she was the victim of a hit and run at that spot in 1998 and is still trying to get home.

Then visit Kellie’s Castle on Ipoh’s outskirts. Lights turn on and off, doors bang and voices scream. Even in the daylight, this weird folly is worth a visit. It is a brooding, odd set of buildings but come in the evening and… Or so they say.

On Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah, in an area called Bota, stands a large government school. Students there claim to have seen hundreds of ghosts. Take one case that a friend (who practices reiki) told me about.

A student, possessed by a hantu, ran around the school acting as if he were a tiger. They called in a bomoh, who is a local witchdoctor, healer or sharman. The bomoh called everyone into the surau and performed a ghost capturing ceremony. He placed a basket in the centre of the school’s surau. The students were sent to collect a piece of the ceiling from every room in the school. They threw the pieces into the basket, then carried it to the river and threw it into the water. It took six students to carry the basket. The tiger boy was fine next morning, if a little sheepish.

And while in Ipoh, take a look at St Michael’s institution, set in the town’s once magnificent town centre surrounded by wonderful old buildings such as the railway station, the high court, the concert hall and even the Royal Ipoh Club (though it is hardly an amazing old building!). St. Michael’s is a Victorian pile on an epic scale. Old boys tell you that numerous tunnels run under the building, built by the Japanese and reputedly filled with the skeletons of their victims.

There is a case for calling Penang, the so-called Pearl of the Orient, the Pontianak Capital of the Orient! While not Britain’s first colony in present day Malaysia – that honour belongs to Bangga in Sabah - of all the historic towns in Malaysia, Penang has one of the most colourful histories.

The Hong Fatt Tze Mansion (now the excellent Penang Peranakan Museum), sits in Lebuh Gereja, (Church Street), Georgetown.

Built by a Captain Chung, he added a private family shrine next to the mansion. It is said to be haunted. Why?

To build the temple, Captain Chung took over a building next door that used to be the headquarters of the Ghee Hin secret society. On the edge of the block is a decorated well into which (it is rumoured) the Ghee Hin used to fling their victims to drown.  To this day, people say that Captain Chung never left his mansion. One of his grandsons is convinced of it and is reported to have said that he saw his grandfather standing next to his bronze statue in the temple.

And on a lighter note, whether you are in Penang or anywhere, if you are over forty, don’t buy any more red string. Tying one end to the flower of a banana tree and the other end to your toe might bring delightful evening visitations from the spirit of the banana tree, but she prefers younger people.

I suspect that one or two of the stories I ran across are exaggerated and a few may be possibly ‘fictional’. I have absolutely no doubt that in each story at the very least there is a grain of ‘truth’.

Are ghosts real? When I think of the happenings I witnessed for myself in almost all the countries in which I have lived, I am leaning towards a yes…

But that needs another book.