Halloween doesn't scare us. We're Asian – we've got the pontianak all year round
Information technology is by midnight. Y'all're a tired homo after a long twenty-four hour period's work who finds himself driving home on a particularly dark and lonely road. Suddenly, you spot a beautiful young lady in a flowy white apparel up ahead.
She appears distressed, then you stop to offering some assistance. Equally you step out of the car, the night air, you of a sudden find, smells fragrant and floral, similar frangipani. The howling canis familiaris yous figure is hiding amidst the banana trees that line the road abruptly starts whining. The sweet air turns into an awful stench.
The very terminal thing you lot hear is the high-pitch shriek of a baby crying as the cute woman transforms into a terrifying ghoul. As well, she's eating your organs, so it'south a pretty bad twenty-four hours overall.
This is a tale that is often told by taxi drivers, grandmothers and National Servicemen alike, and repeated with relish to scare generations of children. Yes, children.
This is probably why almost Asians await decidedly unimpressed at Halloween parties this fourth dimension of year. Oh, you're Dracula? Pfft. Frankenstein's monster? Nice to come across you. The Mummy? You should meet my mommy – that'll scare ya.
Hither in Southeast Asia, our ghouls are next-level. And the pontianak is the comely (at least momentarily) face of Asian horror, feeding on a readily bachelor supernatural framework that exploits our worst fears. She'southward also starred in many regional movies.
She's similar Sadako, except she doesn't requite you lot vii days to live because she's on a tight schedule here, buddy.
READ: Singapore celebrity ghost stories: A spooky road, a very stiff 'perfume' and a headless man
Co-ordinate to Malay folklore in Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, a pontianak is the ghost of a pregnant adult female who has died a trigger-happy decease either at the hands of a man or during childbirth, turning her into a vengeful vampire.
Ordinarily portrayed as long-haired, pale-skinned and dressed in white, the red-eyed pontianak is believed to accept on the class of beautiful maidens to seduce and lure her male victims before using her dagger-like nails to tear open their stomachs. Plainly, she is also prone to seeking revenge on men by dismembering their genitals.
Therapy, apparently, is for the living.
Across the region, supernatural behavior are as diverse as the many cultures and communities that come up with them. Each culture has its own set of ghosts and spirits, be they chivalrous or malevolent. While the Chinese dedicate an entire month to the Hungry Ghost Festival, where deceased ancestors are believed to driblet past for a meal, poltergeists and possessions serve as a source of terror for the Indians.
But information technology is the pontianak – or kuntilanak, every bit she'due south called in Republic of indonesia, or churel in People's republic of bangladesh, Bharat, and Pakistan – who has, erm, risen to become ane of the region's virtually iconic spooks.
What makes her and so scary? It is her classic backstory of tragedy and revenge, which taps into our fundamental, social and cultural fears. Asian horror tropes are typically about crusade and upshot, misfortune and retribution – all of which lean into something all the more real and frightening.
Co-ordinate to a BroadlyVice article, the pontianak, having endured violence and suffering when alive, at present avenges the real-life crimes of femicide, rape and domestic abuse that women living in misogynistic societies experience on a daily basis in expiry.
"She is righting the injustices within a traditional society that has many constraints for women," said Adeline Kueh, senior lecturer at Singapore's LASALLE Higher of the Arts in the same commodity.
And that should scare the bad men. Boo.
READ: 6 hotels in Asia with chilling reputations – and the stories behind them
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Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/entertainment/halloween-pontianak-asian-horror-stories-superstitions-219021
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