The driver travelling on a long and winding road at night noticed every car from the opposite side flashing the high beam at him.
He wondered what was wrong and if he had stopped and got out of this car to check, he might have had the living daylights scared out of him.
I have heard this spooky story since I was young. The incident was supposed to have taken place along the Vale of Tempe Road on the northern part of Penang island.
A woman was sitting on the roof of the man’s car, thus attracting the attention of all the other drivers.
That narrow and winding road has seen many uncanny accidents, some of them fatal. Many vehicles have skidded off the road and gone down the ravine.
Spooky tales of the Vale of Tempe Road even made it to a Singapore website of ghost stories.
Since the Hungry Ghost month is back to seize everyone’s imagination, let me recount a few more of Penang’s best ghoulish tales.
I am sure most Penangites have heard of ‘The Deadly Junction’ of Scotland Road-York Road. Supposedly, when one passes this junction in the dead of the night, one’s car may suddenly careen out of control and crash.
One tree near this junction is supposed to look like a woman carrying a child. A woman witch doctor abducted her sister’s son and both disappeared, and they were last seen decades ago at this junction. So they said.
But the longest-surviving Penang ghost story that has been faithfully handed down generation after generation to wide-eyed, impressionable kids is the ‘Relau Hundred Years Mansion’.
In Lebuh Relau 4, near Taman Metropolitan, sits a grand villa.
Behind its walls is a swimming pool, filled with green water now. Someone had once put deity figurines and joss stick urns to make an altar inside the villa.
It is said a maiden drowned herself in the pool after her family did not approve of a man she loved. In another version, a couple and their son drowned there.
The truth is, Relau Mansion or Villa was built in the 1930s by wealthy tin miner Chung Thye Phin, the last Chinese Kapitan of Perak. Chung Thye Pin Road in Ipoh, Perak, is named after him.
Thye Pin was the fourth son of Kapitan Chung Keng Kwee, Penang’s famous Chinese leader whose memory is now kept alive by every cendol-loving tourist who drops by Ah Quee Street (named after him).
Born in Taiping in 1879, Thye Pin went to St Xavier’s Institution in Penang.
It was told that Thye Pin lived the life of a bon vivant with lavish mansions in Penang, Taiping and Ipoh. He built the first swimming pool on the island in Relau and by its side, a summer house where he entertained his friends and associates.
There was never any official record of tragedy in Relau Mansion.
The mansion has been cordoned off by the Penang Island City Council and the grounds surrounding it have been beautified.
At this time of the year, most Chinese tend to be more mindful of ghosts.
I, myself, keep looking at my watch if I am still out in the streets at night. Years of being told to go home early in the seventh Chinese lunar month instilled a hard-to-break habit.
Many Chinese believe that dwellers of the netherworld are now walking among the living. They are with us for a month to feast and gain some relief from their sufferings.
The Hungry Ghost Festival has gone on for thousands of years, rooted in Taoist and Buddhist folk cultures.
Old folk advise us to avoid late night outings, not get married, not step on or kick offerings left on the roadside and postpone travelling plans that involve sea or air travel.
Whether or not we believe these taboos, there is no harm in being respectful to others and treating all with kindness.
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