The wonderful thing about being Malaysian is that you have lots and lots of celebrations*! In simpleton language, that means the right to have a holiday, overindulge in rich delicious food, dress up like a Christmas tree and spend money on tasteful/tacky decorations!

On the 1^st and 2^nd of October, we celebrated ‘Hari Raya Aidilfitri’- a 2 day national holiday filled with fun and meaning.

Fun because you can’t be a successful festival if you’re not fun (it’s the prerequisite, along with being colourful and noisy. Everyone knows that)! And meaningful because Hari Raya Aidilfitri isn’t the marketing brainchild of a sneaky entrepreneur but instead it’s a genuine time old event with religious origins as testament.

So on the 1^st and 2^nd of October, I was enjoying myself visiting my friends at their, ‘rumah terbuka’ (open houses) and being a successful avoider of the ‘balik kampung‘ traffic!

What were you doing?

*You don’t have to be Malaysian to celebrate our festivities, anyone and everyone from around the world are welcomed, and that’s the beauty of it.

Here’s your invite:-

She was once a mortal woman but that all changed when she traded her soul for beauty through the practice of black magic.

What does she want?

The blood of pregnant women. She perches on the roofs of houses of women in labour, screeching when the child is born. She then uses her long invisible tongue to lap up the blood of the new mother. Those whose blood the Hantu Tengelong had fed upon is left with a supernatural fatal disease. Is there a cure? Well fight the supernatural with the supernatural I guess and consult a bomoh (witch doctor of sort).

How to protect yourself from her?

Surround your houses with thorns! Not just any thorns, but the thorns of the Mengkuang.  That why if she comes, her dangling bits will get caught and cut up in thorny bushes. To be extra safe, women can keep a pair of scissors or betel nut cutters under her pillow as the hantu is afraid of them (why? Not sure really, Raz thinks its probably a paranoia of getting those dangly bits cut off?). People who live in traditional Malay houses plant pineapples under their houses (these houses sit on stilts so they have an ‘under house area’) to prevent the creature from coming in that way.

Mengkuang Shrub (Photo credit: chekjawa)

Can she die or be vanquished?

Actually, she can be ‘put to rest’ (kill is such a violent word) through the following methods:

1. When she gets herself caught in the thorny bushes of the mengkuang, brave men can go get their trusty ‘parangs’ (machetes) and do the deed.

   
   
   The many kinds of Parang (Photo credit: Sabah.org)
   
   

2. If you’re pretty certain there’s one flying about, then the lot of you (strong stomach men only) can spy on her (mind the dripping blood) to find out where she lives. Then the next night she goes out, break an entry into her house and fill her hallow vinegar immersed body (through the hole in the neck) with shards of broken glass and nails then leave of course! She’ll die when she tries to tuck herself  back into the booby trapped body as the glass and nails should cut and shred her entrails.
3. Of you can just sanctify the body then cremate it before she returns. That way she has no body to go attach back to and after that I suppose an angry brave mob can go hunt her down with their parangs.

It would seem that October is a pretty happening month in both hemispheres. As we vast approach the end of it, the West is gearing up for Halloween on the 31st and we back here in the East, we’re getting ready for Deepavali – The festival of Lights which will fall on the 27^th (for this year).

Here in Malaysia, Deepavali is a gazetted holiday and therefore another chance for us to celebrate! Now remember I mentioned before in a previous post that the best festivals had to fun, colourful, noisy and meaningful? Well Deepavali is very very colourful and it stands up to its name as ‘The Festival of Lights’. When someone says ‘Deepavali’ I think friendly faces, races united, kolum, oil lamps, delicious sweets and a sea of colours from the dressings.

There’s a beautiful story behind Deepavali. These days’ people just sum it up as the day that marks the triumph of good over evil – the victory of light over dark.

Would you like to hear the story?

You give into the sweet tuk-tuk driver’s sincerity and he takes you to the Lucky Buddha temple before to the gem factories. You’ll find that the temple is hardly what you expected and it’s not located on your map. You might meet ‘someone’ at the temple and he’s going to speak great English and he’s going to wow you with his knowledge about your country! (he’s a professional of course he did his homework!) Then he’s going to smooth his way into telling you about what a lucky devil you are because you’re just in time for that great gem sale! Gem sale? Sound familiar? Well that’s cause your friendly Tuk-tuk driver just told you about it.

Anyways if by now you don’t smell that stench of scam (I suggest you see a ENT when you get home) then you will find yourself at the Gem factory because your Tuk-tuk driver is going to enthusiastically take you there.

Next time: What happens at the Gem factory outlet… Stay tuned fellow travelers because you’re going to want to hear about the scam within the scam.

You’re going to want to keep an eye out for ‘Holidayer Vultures’. They are perfectly camouflaged into the background and feed off poor defenseless/unsuspecting/trusting tourists. Now ‘Holidayer Vultures’ are very crafty and have many tricks, some are poorly executed so you can smell them a mile away but others are a very elaborate syndicated scam and those are the ones you want to never become apart of.

One scam in Bangkok that has claimed many victims is the tuk-tuk temple tour. Usually, this is how it starts:

You flag down a tuk-tuk. You say I want to go to destination A (say a famous temple with the gold Buddha), tuk-tuk driver says, no problem sir. Once you get on, he tells you about ‘other places’ you can visit and offers to take you there. Often it’s going to include a Lucky Buddha temple before he gets to some gem factory/outlets. You politely decline and say no thanks, just to destination A please. Tuk-tuk driver then tells you, Oh Sir, I forgot, today is XXX (they make it up as they go along), temple is closed till 2pm. How about I take you to those places first (those he just mentioned), no extra charge. You think scam alert!!! But tuk-tuk driver works faster than your brain does, he says, “Please Sir, the gem factories gives me free gas when I bring tourists. You don’t have to buy anything, just take a look”. You soften up and go alright, afterall he did say Destination A closed till 2, no extra charge and don’t have to buy anything.

So what happens next and how what are the tell tale signs in the scam that you can look out for? Ah well you’ll just have to wait for the next post to find out!

EAF Vocabulary Food:

Holidayer Vulture - Don’t bother looking it up. This is a name I coined up for scammers who prey on the tourism industry.

Tuk-tuk – Sometimes spelt tut-tut, it’s a type of transportation that is synonymous with ‘Thailand’. You could say it’s the traditional taxi of the country. Many describe it as a motorized rickshaw.

*Remember, tuk-tuks are NOT cheaper than taxis in Thailand.

And today, I love my dolls around the world, so I’m here to share with you Mattel’s Barbie World Culture Collection – Dolls of Asia. So you get/ have to take a look at them in their glorious traditional attires. Can you name the traditional costumes?

Cambodia

China - Manchu era

Japan

Korea

India

Malaysia

Indonesia

Thailand

 Picture Credit: © 2008 Mattel, Inc.
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Hiromi Nishiuchi - Miss Air Guitar + Muscles = Lingerie Image Girl

Amazing Philippines 2008 Beauties Parade

Modernisation doesn’t just ravish nature, it also ravishes culture. As you can see, the Hantu Penanggalan folklore requires the following to exist:

• women and their insatiable lust for beauty – this one still exists, but instead of black magic where they need to do not so pleasant things like become this creature, modernisation gives them the easier route of opting for plastic surgery.
• Mengkuang leaves and pineapple plants – yes we can still find these but how many still do home birth when there’s hospitals?
• Traditional Malay houses- These were made of wood, so we gather that the hantu can pass through planks, but does she also do concrete?
• Parangs – Oh these certainly do still exist but people have come a long way from being a scared lot with big knives…these days we’re professionals at war so we’ve got big fire power and the nerves of steal!
• Pregnant women – well getting lesser really as more and more women decide they want to be apart of the ‘DINK’s* society, which means no food for the hantu.

*DINK = Double Income No Kids

(Credit: KLgreetings)

Well if you guys read The West has Halloween, the East has Deepavali, then you’d know I asked if you wanted to know the story behind it. Well here it is. There’s actually many stories, but I’m going to tell you the one that’s most reknowned among those who celebrate it.

Once upon a time (what? you can’t have a ‘story’ if you don’t start with that line! Come on people, get into the mood!) there lived a demon, Narakasura, and he ruled the kingdom of Pradyoshapuram. He wasn’t a good ruler, and his people suffered under his reign. There was hardship and torture and loss of loved ones as the evil Narakasura took women folk against their will, imprisoning them in his palace. It was a very very dark time for the people.

Observing the sufferings of the people, Lord Khrishna set out to kill the demon Narakasura. The day the demon died ending his rule and the people’s suffering was the day the people saw the light return to their lives. It became celebrated as Deepavali, – the festival of lights where there was the triumph of good over evil!

The End…

Lord Khrishna slaying the demon Narakasura (Picture credit: diwalifestival)

Be a sport and send some Deepavali E-greetings to your friends! Deepavali falls on Monday 27th Of Oct. this year. Here are some sites you can visit to find such cards:

• klgreetings
• atmgreetings
• theholidayspot
• 123greetings

You probably know that the Chinese are everywhere in East Asia. But did you know that they don’t fit your common idea of a Chinese person looks like? Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Thailand etc all have ethnic Chinese citizens but they don’t look the same. Can you tell a Malaysian Chinese from a Chinese from China? If you can’t then you need to broaden your mind and be more observant because it’s a pretty obvious difference that is noticeable from physical traits and features alone.

(brilliant pictures after jump)

In China alone there are recognised to be 55 ethnic groups, all of which a brilliant Miao artist -ZhengQingyin has incorporated into her ethnic Chinese wooden dolls.

These are some of her lovely creations. Which is your favourite? I like the Tibeten one.

Picture Credit: Galleria Pangea

Hantu tengelong or Hantu Penanggal is a ghoul from the Malay culture. It is a female creature that is seen flying around with only her head, lungs, stomach and intestines attached. The rest of her body is left preserved in a vinegar filled container to prevent its rapid decomposition.

She detaches herself from her body at night to hunt as she lives off human blood (specific ones too). As she flies about you can spot her because her entrails are said to look like fireflies in the night, but watch out because you don’t want any of her blood that drips from her entrails to touch you-they leave you with skin sores that modern medicine won’t be able to cure.

She will return to her body during the day, and go about like a ordinary woman. Don’t expect to be able to tell her apart from mortal women because she’s hideous or disfigured, because she won’t be. It is believed that she is usually a beautiful woman (she may be young or old but she is always beautiful). So how do you identify one? You use your keen sense of smell…she’s going to be the one with that strong stench of vinegar.

Raz isn’t going to post any pictures here cause it’s too disturbing but you can go here to see them.

Next in Part 2: She was human once, but who was she?