Ever since more locals learned that I’m researching the indigenous peoples of the Malay Peninsula, my inbox has occasionally popped up with unexpected invitations—to give talks, appear on shows, be in films, write books and so on. Because of a busy schedule and limited energy, I accept what I can; requests I can’t reply to or can’t commit to, I simply decline. But recently one email made a strong impression—and it came from someone in China. She told me she’s working on an American podcast called Spooked, whose host invites different guests each episode to tell their personal supernatural experiences. The woman emphasized that she was writing to me because she read my column, had been deeply struck by the indigenous worldview and was convinced I must have encountered similar eerie events during my research; she therefore invited me to be a guest on a new episode. Reading that, I couldn’t help but smile. Although I ultimately couldn’t make it, if I were to tally up my field experiences I might well be able to write an indigenous version of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio. As a “secularized” city dweller, I once thought ghosts and spirits were merely products of human imagination. After all, things you haven’t seen with your own eyes are hard to believe. Once I even traveled to Si Puntum’s grave in Pasir Salak, Perak during the ghost month asking him to visit my dreams and explain why he assassinated the British Resident J.W.W. Birch in 1875. The idea came from oral histories among indigenous people that presented a version of events very different from the national history textbooks. At the time I dreamed nothing, but a few years later, while helping a local TV station to film a folklore program and coming into contact with many indigenous shamans and healing rituals, I unintentionally “switched on” a sensitive side of mine. Since then, supernatural presences have become an invisible companion I cannot ignore during fieldwork. Why are there so many ghosts here—from hitchhiking spirits to tea-cake-making grandmas? Take my fieldwork at Endau-Rompin National Park in Johor as an example: the scariest encounter was with a “hitchhiking ghost.” It always appears on the same stretch of road—whenever I drove past it, the car’s red seat-belt warning light would suddenly flash, telling me “the front passenger seatbelt is unfastened.” I was the only person in the car. So who, exactly, was sitting beside me? Another incident happened at the Urang Huluk’s forest clinic. That traditional healing space opens for four days and three nights at a time, so when choosing a place to sleep I deliberately picked the “nicest spot” that allowed the clearest view of the ritual. To my surprise, that day everyone praised me for being “so brave.” At first their compliments puzzled me, but after the third night I seemed to understand: on the first night I felt something beside me pulsing so that the wooden plank against my back shook. But when I opened […]
2 mth ago
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