Hi all, this is my own true story from long ago, wrote it myself, never cut and paste from somewhere. And may be a bit long, so pls be gentle with me. Also got a diagram hor, dun pray pray. Btw, story copyrighted by me hor. Hee hee.

It happened during my army days, SISPEC during topo training session. For the girls who don’t know (and guys who forgot) we are split up into groups of 2 or 3, given directions where we’re supposed to find Chinese chess pieces tied onto trees in a jungle. It’s supposed to improve our map reading and compass skills. IIRC, it was held in Choa Chu Kang.

Anyway, I was in a group of 3 and we set off happily. The day topo went well, we finished early and settled down at base for dinner and prep for night topo. The 1st check point at night we already got lost. Hahaha. Neh mind, do our best, bash thru all the nonsense and we ended up on this small dirt road. It looked familiar, so we decided I stay on the road, while 1 buddy (call him mark) went 1 way and the other guy (call him peng) went the other way to see if can recognise anything.

Mark soon came back and we stood together looking at the map. Now on both sides of the road, there’s very thick vegetation, maybe can only see a few feet into it. Something distracted me and I looked up to see a light coming from the vegetation, so I showed it to my buddy Mark. It was maybe 7-8m away from us. Already late at night, so we thought can only be other groups also involved in the exercise, so we started shouting, “Hey guys! We’re lost! Can help us or not?” No answer, so we continued shouting.

Then I realised that the light was flickering. I thought, ”Strange, a torch should not flicker that way.” So I kept quiet while my other friend still shouted his head off. Suddenly, out of the jungle, I saw a Samsui woman step out holding a red candle! She was carrying a pole across her shoulders, with 2 large baskets hanging off both ends. She was also muttering something which I knew was hokkien, but very strangely I couldn’t understand anything. I could feel ice suddenly flowing through my veins, my heart started to pound loudly.

Then my dear friend Mark turned to me smiling and said, “Eh, zho ho lang leh (Be a good person). Go and help her carry.” I looked at him and dunno want to laugh or cry. I wanted to say to him, “Si lang ah si gui? (is it a person or a ghost?)” but was afraid because I didn’t want to attract any more attention to us.

Luckily Peng came back from behind us, patted our shoulders and said, “How now?” Somehow he hasn’t seen the samsui woman yet, probably cuz he was staring at his own map. I just stared at his face until he saw her. I almost burst out laughing when I saw his jaw drop! Just like in the movies. Hahaha. Of course, Mark turned to him and repeated, “Eh, zho ho lang leh!” Wah lau! I was thinking, this is becoming a comedy!

Peng and I looked at each other, and we knew what each other were thinking. We immediately took Mark shoulders, turned around, and started walking very quickly away. Mark’s face was still blur like sotong saying, “Eh? What are you all doing?” While walking, Peng told us to take off our caps and expose our foreheads, and jiggle our cupboard keys around our necks. He said this is to keep us alert in case we met a “Zhap Pia Gui” or 10-wall ghost, to translate literally. Apparently, this ghost would cause you to walk around in circles and get lost. I remembered thinking, “What are we going to do if we couldn’t walk away fast enough or that woman chased after us? We got no Plan B!” Damn scared!!

By now, Mark finally understood what was going on. We got even more lost, if that were possible, so we tried to radio for help while walking. But no one heard us. We decided to climb up this small hill with a clearing and wait, hoping to get radio contact and also to wait for others to come by and help us out. On the way up, I heard a woman scream in the distance. I looked at the both of them, but I could see that they didn’t hear anything, so I kept quiet.

Anyway, we were on that hill for about 30min, and met a few pairs of guys walking by. But when we told them what happened, each pair decided to stay with us until the group got bigger. Hahahah. Finally, when there were about 9 of us, including 1 guy who knew how to get back, we headed back to base. We reported what happened to our superiors and they all laughed. But when we invited them to go out with us to have a look, they all laughed nervously and made some excuse and walked away.

Finally, the 3 of us sat down and had a chat among ourselves. That’s when we got a big shock! We found out that I myself saw an old samsui woman, with the red hat and dark blue or black (can’t really tell) clothes. Mark said he saw just an old woman, but no red hat. But Peng, he saw the best thing. He said he saw the woman with red hat, blue/black clothes, but NO FACE! I’m glad I wasn’t him. Mark and I opened our eyes wide, and muttered something like, “Maybe we shouldn’t talk any more about this until tomorrow morning.” And that’s the last we really spoke about it.