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The Ghosts of SIngapore

© John Walsh

Singapore is very famous for its ghosts. The mixture of different races of people, Chinese, Malay and Indian, have brought their own beliefs with them. Alongside any road can be found the Hungry Dead of the Chinese, the penanggalan of the Malays (a flying head trailing intestines and entrails) and a whole variety of hauntings of every shape and style. Above all, it is the majority Chinese who have shaped the influence of supernatural belief in the island city-state known as the Lion City. And Chinese belief is set upon layers and layers of different pantheons, sets of myths and other indigenous beliefs integrated into the greater Chinese consciousness. At the heart of this is a form of animism, of worshipping the spirits of nature that occasionally emerges as a potent symbol of the fury and spite of nature.

One of the more powerful of the Chinese spirits, one which recurs across the Chinese-influenced regions of Korea, Japan and Vietnam, is that of the fox spirit. It is, perhaps, the result of the habits of foxes in using unearthed coffins for their dens and as a source of food, that has given it such a bad reputation. In any case, the fox spirit is well-known as the personification of lascivious femininity, which is a concept that has terrified male-dominated societies around the world. It-she roams the countryside seeking to seduce and corrupt innocent men, woodcutters and similar people, leading them inexorably to their doom as it is impossible to resist her unearthly wiles.

Traditional ghosts and monsters such as the fox spirit rub shoulder to shoulder with more modern apparitions in Singapore. The Japanese occupation and the British imperial control both gave numerous opportunities for the murder and oppression of Singaporeans. The slaughter of anywhere between 5,000 and 50,000 Chinese Singaporeans by the Japanese during the Second World War represented a huge number of restless dead, in addition to the horrible human tragedy. The murder of nuns, the suicide of schoolchildren overwhelmed by the pressure put on them to excel, the ancient inhabitants of the islands and the wasted products of globalisation are all capable of providing a presence that lingers after death, unwilling to take its appointed place in the afterlife. There is scarcely a street, a school or a hospital in Singapore which does not boast at least one ghost. All are best avoided, one way or another.

What is the point of ghost stories? As Jonathan Lim observes, they have an important role to play: "Ghost stories are the dark sibling of fairy tales. They are cautionary tales too - told to scare, but also to teach. They warn us about boundaries we should not cross and curiosities we should not indulge. Old folks tell these stories to warn children not to wander alone at night, not to pick up strange objects, not to pee against trees, and not to name certain spirits aloud. Old folks tell these stories so that their children can learn how to survive what's out there" (p.74).

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