Ghosts and Goblins
November 9, 2008 6 Comments
I have been having a craving for horror movies lately and I don’t know why. I blame it on the sudden cold dearth, which is weird since this is the time when I usually pull out the ‘happy’ shows to watch in order to survive the cold, damp weather.
I found myself searching the TV guide for anything a bit macabre. The most I could find was the original ‘The Amityville Horror’ on MGM Channel but it wasn’t as scary as I had hoped or thought it would be so with my itch still unscratched, I was back to surfing YouTube for anything and everything ghostly.
In Singapore where I come from, like in the rest of Asia, we relish horror tales so much that they have become ingrained in our culture and are a part of our daily lives. However, movies like ‘The Amityville Horror’ pale beyond comparison to the tales and movies we have from our own backyard.
I was seven years when I watched my first full-fledged horror movie and it gave me nightmares for months. My mother took advantage of it and made me memorise a powerful verse from our holy book, which is as we are consistently told, the best and most effective ‘weapon’ against anything supernatural. It took me four years to learn it and just as long to recover from my first horror movie experience.
The Pontianak ghost
Along the way, I would learn all the different varieties of ghosts that we have, especially the most prominent one, the pontianak, which is created when a woman dies in childbirth and comes back to haunt the living. Due to the circumstances of her creation, her main preys are pregnant women and newborn children so both ‘target groups’ are forbidden to leave their homes after dark.
I had a recent online chat with my cousin from back home and whilst asking about her now one year old daughter, the subject of ghosts came up. She was left alone that week as her teacher husband was away on camp with his students and she was staying over at her parents’ until he came back.
I tried to convince her to just stay at home instead of going through the trouble of packing 101 things for herself and her eight month old daughter but she confessed to being afraid to be alone, not for fear of criminals or the like, but for fear of ghosts and goblins dropping in on the both of them without a (supposedly) strong male figure around.
I should have been more empathetic to her since I had just received an email with a picture of what looked like a pontianak perching on a tree somewhere in her neighbouring housing estate.
It gave me the creeps so I’m not about to dismiss her fears for it but I realised in trying to discourage her, that I had been desensitised from our collective fear of the supernatural.
“The Dutch don’t believe in the supernatural”
When I first came to the Netherlands, my husband, David, would leave me alone one night a week to play soccer, departing at 8 pm and arriving home at 11 pm. I was like my cousin then as I would lock myself in our bedroom after he left and switched on the television really loud so I wouldn’t have to hear anything bumping in the night.
Even going to the toilet involved scurrying there and quickly scurrying back and I armed myself with a bottle of water as I didn’t dare travel the wee bit distance to the kitchen downstairs for a drink. David laughed and made fun of me because Dutch people don’t believe in the supernatural of any kind and he tried to explain to me that there was more to fear in the ordinary person on the street than something that appears to be there but actually isn’t.
I was annoyed with him in the beginning as he seemed to have so much pleasure in mocking me and my culture and we had endless discussions on the topic.
And then, I got pregnant and whilst sharing it with one of my friends, she told me to keep a nail under my pillow when I slept at night so that the pontianak would be scared away and not take my unborn child.
As if being pregnant wasn’t difficult enough, I had to worry about my unborn baby being taken away by something that might or might not exist and I began to realise how absurd some people could get with their ghostly beliefs.
As I adjusted to living in the Netherlands, I encountered a few people from ‘the other side of the track’ and it gave me insight into what David had been trying to tell me all along.
I think that this place is full of unsavoury characters who make ghosts and goblins look like Mary Poppins. It all came to a climax when were walking down the street one day and a car sped next to us, just missing us by inches. We yelled at them and two boys came out of the car waving their baseball bats at us.
I know that those ‘things’ out there will probably leave me alone if I do the same to them but I can’t say the same about those two malicious boys. Yes, the most harm the ghosts can do to me is to give me an epileptic attack which I can quickly recover from but being assaulted with a sports instrument is likely to take more time to heal.
“Loop jij wapenvrij?” (“Can you walk without weapons?”), media campaign by the Landelijke Stichting Tegen Zinloos Geweld (Dutch National Association Against Senseless Violence)
By not believing in the supernatural the way Asians are expected to, I could be considered a snob back home. But it’s not that I don’t believe in them anymore – I even had a few experiences myself. I just believe in them in a different way and it’s mainly because I have to. If I were back home, I could run to my parents’ or the dozens of relatives I have and lock myself in the bedroom with a blanket over me.
Unfortunately, I don’t have that luxury here so I have to suck it in and stick it out and for the most part, I refuse to be chased away from my own house, particularly by something whose existence is still up for debate. It doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy a ‘pontianak’ story anytime but indulging in it any further will probably affect the way I live and I’m not about to start packing for the night when David has to go for soccer every Tuesday.
It does seem strange that the ghosts would choose to ‘disturb’ me back home in Singapore especially at times when the house would be full of people and somehow not here in the Netherlands, when there have been plenty of times that I have been home alone. I have never so much as heard a rattling here, let alone witnessed things moving around (my first experience back in Singapore).
I would like to think that it’s because there are no ghosts here but are there really none or is it because, unlike in Singapore, nobody here believes in ghosts?
The Dutch believe in exact science and if they can’t see something, they choose not to believe in it. Perhaps that explains why the supernatural is non-existent here.
Perhaps ghosts and goblins were all created for practical purposes to remind us that no matter how our lives might work out, we are only humans and vulnerable to everything, even to something we cannot see. That would be a better logic for our beliefs but I’m not sure if anyone will agree with me, least of all the Dutch.
Characters like those baseball bat-wielding boys make up for whatever evil is lacking here and if the humans are malicious enough, ghosts and goblins kind of defeat their purpose here.
Chasing the ghosts away
Notwithstanding that, we (at least the Asians who still believe) don’t have to go around declaring our ‘conversion’. Yes, we can probably never get rid of it but just because we believe in them doesn’t mean we should reaffirm their existence. And yes, by moving out when you’re left alone in the house is a loud and clear sign of reaffirmation of the very thing we should not be encouraging in the first place. We might just as well put out a ‘Welcome’ mat for those ghosts we think await us.
Unfortunately I know it’s easier said than done especially in Singapore where people jump at a horror story instead of trying to disable it. Still, I hope my fellow Asians back home will learn to take another approach to it all.
Do what I do and suppress the fear with regular prayers and meditation so that whatever is out there can see it’s dealing with a spiritual house. Take ownership of your home by doing what you like, and watching something really funny or entirely depressing is a sure-fire way to chase those ‘inner’ ghosts away – anything by Michael Moore is a guarantee.
There’s no harm in exchanging the odd pontianak story but when you hear the thud outside the window, say a prayer and carry on with whatever you are doing. Push any thought of pontianak to the back of your mind and move on ahead with your life in front of you.
Malia Janssen (pen name) is a Singaporean mother of one married to a Dutch native and presently residing in South Limburg.
This article reminds me of my childhood years in Japan, where I first became acquainted with the world of the supernatural in folkloric tales, television cartoons and popular beliefs. I still clearly remember some Japanese words for ghosts, such as “obake” or “yurei”. I used to be very afraid to be outdoors after sunset or to walk past a cemetery or any other deserted place because I thought that we might see ghostly fireballs (will o the wisps) flying through the air, just as on television. But when we moved to Europe, I also noticed that people weren’t very interested in ghost stories and most of the time just made fun of them.
My husband, who is Dutch, tells me that I should try to see the Dutch series “De Stille Kracht” and “De Kris Pusaka”, which were broadcast in the Netherlands back in the 70′s. He says that both their storylines were set in Indonesia and were very scary because they contained many elements of the supernatural. He also says that both series were extremely popular. I’d like to see them too one day…
*lol* I am a Malaysian living in the Netherlands so your article makes a lot of sense! I can never understand the “romance” of walking in the woods at night. We have serious “hantu” (ghosts), “orang bunian” (elves), “toyol” (child spirit) etc in our jungles!
Well, BBC1 has this new series every Thursday starting at 21.00 Dutch time.. it’s called Apparitions and deals with devils, demons and saints and the Catholic Church and a priest, father Jacob, who is an expert in exorcism. The series has just started and we watched the 3rd episode yesterday. It’s quite interesting because it deals with religion and controversy within the catholic community too, because father Jacob is under the scrutiny of the bishop who wants to kick him out of the church
This is all set in modern life, nowadays.
The supernatural and everything involved is such a diverse world combining so many different elements, especially if you consider how each culture or country has its own ghosts and such.
Sueli, I know about those series your husband mentioned. and I was brought up with that kind of stuff, since my folks are from Indonesia
Not that everything can be explained by it, of course.
Can’t say I never hid in my bed or under the covers hahaha. As children, my brother and I had to take turns in closing the curtains upstairs. I wasn’t afraid in my own room, but closing the curtains in my parents’ room and my brother’s, it always gave me the creeps because I thought someone was watching me. Ugh. And even in my own room, I sometimes had this strong notion somebody was standing at the end of my bed watching me. I can even remember having seen someone, vague, white-ish and with a beard. I had strange dreams as a small infant, until the age of 6 I think. Then someone with powers to look ‘within’ came to visit us and I had to sit on his lap because my mother said I was sensing things around the house and that it scared me… This man, who was a friend of the family, then looked me in the eyes and said he could see I had a spot in my eye that was well-developed and that enabled me to see/sense stuff and that I had to have faith and believe. Must say that I did manage to conquer my fears and that the ‘supernatural’, from then on, kind of was translated into learning to recognize and use one’s own intuition
MTV in Flemish Belgium broadcasted Asian horror movies for a while, on Fridays, a few years ago. I was glued to the screen, but can’t really say what it is that fascinates me about it.
I can recommend watching Apparitions on BBC1, every Thursday at 21.00 hrs. And maybe Western culture may have suppressed the ‘supernatural’, superstition is thriving still I think….
Thanks for the BBC tip Gina, I’ll have a look!
I think you have a valid point when you say that people in Western cultures are not necessarily as rational as they look or think they are… Even if most people here don’t seem to believe in ghosts anymore, there are still many of those who visit spiritual fairs (“paranormale beurzen”) and seek help from spiritual healers like Jomanda for example… As a matter of fact, I just found out that Jomanda organises “healing gatherings” in the chapel of Maria Vrede in Valkenburg aan de Geul, right here in South Limburg!
Thanks for the tip too and hopefully I will be able to catch that BBC program because it does sound interesting. I am always curious to discover similar things in other cultures/religions especially here where so few believe them.
Indonesia and Thailand are the ‘superpowers’ when it comes to the supernatural and they have been known to produce the best myths, legends and movies. I have had my fill for now so it’s back to watching ‘The Golden Girls’ for me.
As a Catholic, I think only God can make us see the supernatural things which He created along with the natural things.
For instance, it seems He made some children see virgin Mary in Lourdes (1856), Fatima (1917), Banneux (1933).
These events have been accurately investigated.
However, I think revelations of supernatural things are very rare.
Most ghost stories must stem from cheating or imagination.
Ogilvie and Char must be very capable in perceiving what their clients are unconsciously giving away.