Jurong West Canal

   This incident took place a few years ago when I was still in primary school. Back then, my family and I were still living in one of the flats in Jurong West. There was a large canal behind our HDB block and there is a secondary school, I believed it has already merged with another secondary school, near my block. Since it is the hungry ghost festival now, I thought it will be the perfect timing to share this story as it took place during the hungry ghost month.

  Since young, my family made it a point to prepare offerings during the ghost month and we always prepare the offerings facing the canal. After doing what we were told, my siblings and I loved playing at the canal area where we play catching and sometimes "spot fishes" - although we couldn't really see any. Over the years, nothing much happened until something happened eventually...

  As usual, we started playing after placing the offerings and since I was already older, I knew about a lot more things. I read somewhere that you could see ghosts when you look in between your legs - which is a common asian belief. I didn't know what I was thinking but I thought that it would be the best situation to try out this "myth". I took a deep breathe and decided to do it. I spread my legs apart and look in between it. My view was the offerings that was placed earlier but I did not see anything. In my mind, I thought to myself ,"My parents are liars. Why got no ghosts?". Although I did not see anything, little did I know I have influenced my younger brother.

    The next thing I saw was my younger brother mimicking my actions while giggling to himself. Since nothing happened to me, I thought it will be the same for him but I was wrong. His giggling turned to a loud cry. He started shouting "Bu yao!" repetitively while crying, which translates to "I don't want!". As soon as he started crying, all the candle lights faded even though there was no wind. As usual, I was laughing because my young dumb mind thought that he was joking. Not long later my parents came and I got an ass whooping for influencing my younger brother. After much consoling done by my parents, my little brother opened up to us.

  He said that it was crowded and there were many people squatting. What I remembered was him describing a large group of people squatting around the offerings and began moving towards him when he looked in between his legs. After hearing that, I could not sleep the whole night because I was scared that those "things" followed us home and was watching me sleep. Although nothing paranormal happened that night, my parents brought us to the temple to cleanse ourself and get rid of any negative energy. 

  I shifted a few years later and saw some articles claiming that the area is supposedly haunted. Maybe that's the reason why I had the chills at times when I was there but thankfully, nothing happened to me!