Thread #3 on #Hantu

One of the things mentioned in the #ConZealand #WorldCon2020 How Scary Can You Be panel is "school horror" helping children deal with trauma in their lives with the introduction of supernatural/unlikely horror.

In Malaysia, all Chinese schools are haunted.

Brief history:

- During WW2, the Japanese invaded the area now known as Peninsula Malaysia, abandoned by former colonists the Brits

- Local ethnic Chinese make up a large % of communists opposing Japanese rule

- The Japanese were actively hunting down the ethnic Chinese

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(This isn't to say only the local Communists were the one opposing Japanese rule - there was an active resistance army including others, but a lot of Chinese at the time were part of the Malayan Communist Party actively hunting and hunted down by the Japanese Imperial Army.) 3/?

Another historical bg: There were (and are) Chinese vernacular and Chinese private schools operated by the ethnic Chinese of Malaysia, usually self-sufficient although the vernacular schools are government-owned (but not well-supported) 4/?

If you grew up in a Chinese vernacular/private school, this is what you'll be told happened during the Japanese invasion:

Your school was a Japanese execution ground for the Chinese communists they caught.

Usually, the execution ground was the school field. 5/?

In some Chinese school legends, their school was the POW camp or the one hiding the fleeing communist soldiers, but more often than not it's the execution site. Maybe because it's scarier? It's unclear how many of these schools really were owing to shoddy records. 6/?

The point remains: your Chinese school is haunted. Don't do dumb, ghost-taunting things when staying late/overnight by cursing for them to appear, being disrespectful to your ancestors, or peeing in the flower beds (without praying an apology). 7/?

A great number of Chinese school horror revolves the toilet.

The toilet is considered an "Ying" place (in Yin Yang) and thus, "unclean" and prone to the supernatural.

In short, the toilet is very dirty, and by that I mean it's filled with ghosts

#hantu
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Ghosts you can meet in a Chinese school toilet include:

Executed Victim
- Predictable
- Ok, very sad
- Reminds kid of grandpa, bad times

Marches of Japanese Imperial Army
- Inexplicable sounds
- Wow, why are they still here haunting us
- Exciting & foreign, good times

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Personal #hantu anecdote!

The high school prefect body did an overnight camp in the school. One of our genius ideas was to organize a CSI activty *at night* because spooky

We drew chalk body outlines, dumped "evidence", and dripped red candle wax as "blood".

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This was to hone investigative skills among the younger prefects and not because we wanted to scare them, which was why we also turned off the electricity, lit candles everywhere, and started it at 11pm.

Also one of the outlines was in the boys' toilets. #genius #hantu

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This was a mistake, since the girls were more interested than spooked because many haven't seen a urinal then. The boys dealt with chauvinist bravado.

I was a senior "guarding" the toilet inviting the kids in, while another senior brought them in to be toilet detectives.

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Things were going fine. Groups of kids of 8-10 were very into the whole thing. One group went in...

... then immediately ran out with the senior. She was shaking along half of the kids, while the others were just looking confused.

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I asked what happened, she just shook her head and said "this station's cancelled" and we couldn't talk about it until daybreak. None of the kids wanted to say what happened either.

Me: ???????????????????? ok guess my job's done i'll go sleep lol

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The next morning, I finally coaxed a kid to tell me that, in no uncertain terms, they heard:

"A male voice shouting in Japanese, then the sounds of swords and screams. It ends with marching sounds, accompanied by Japanese march chants."

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Anyway, it had no lasting effect on everyone involved, even the senior who pretended nothing happened!

Thank you for politely not causing permanent mental/physical hardship to the schoolkids you haunted, Japanese Imperial Army Marching Ghosts. #blessed

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That ends today's #hantu of Malaysia session! This isn't even the only time I missed being haunted in a personal capacity so, with some luck, I will continue missing these horrifying opportunities to meet some terrible ghosts.

#WorldCon2020 #CoNZealand #worldcon

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