The ghostly encounters at German Girl Temple

It has been a good 8 mths since I last blogged.

Been lazy I guessed. But after my trip to Pulau Ubin to pay my respect at the German Girl Temple just last Saturday, thot of following up on a commentary I made about the ghost happenings at German Girl Temple two years ago.

I did a tele-movie for Arts Central entitled Moving Gods in 2004.

During the first night of production, we were shooting right outside the temple. Got this boy actor and some villages residing in Pulau Ubin to act as extras. In the scene the boy and the villagers are in a ritual dedicating the boy to the gods as a caretaker. Got the boy to wear a yellow bandana (since yellow is sort of the "national" color for all 拿 督 temples). I was not aware of what happened behind the scenes as I was busy directing the cameraman but my art director told me that the boy vomited and that this driver by the name of Vincent (also a resident of Pulau Ubin) told my art director to remove the yellow bandana from the boy.

I did not have any issue with it and did not feel anything amiss though I felt spooked of shooting at night right outside the temple. But I remembered that in between breaks I did approached the boy's mum and she just mentioned her boy was not feeling well.

But wah lao second night lucky best!

Was shooting a ghost scene in a kampong near the German Girl Temple. It was way past midnight and around 2am we managed to wrap up the shoot. My sound recordist Melvin went to turn off the generator but somehow the "handle flew out" and knocked his head and he went into a concussion. Two of my crew members dragged him inside the hut and have him seated on a chair..... The driver Vincent and two of the other crews members try to revive him. Then for the most scary 15 to 20 seconds of my life... I saw him entered into a "fit" or "possession". His eyes were rolled up and his arms were eerily hanging in the air like zombie... I remembered quite clearly that I was just standing there with my intern behind me super frightened at what we have seen. And I do recalled with laughter now that I shouted to my sound recordist some insensitive remarks like "Melvin, Melvin... are you all right, eh dun play leh."

During the 15 to 20 seconds, the two crews tried to pin him down and Vincent, the driver came to the rescue, he took out some kind of religious amulet from his neck and recited some teochew words. After that Melvin got back to his senses. And the best of it all, he appeared pretty calm and said that it is alright and it is just "fit".

But I was freaking demoralized as I was afraid that the next night would be worst and already I can sense that my interns (especially the girls) were scared shitless and wanted to go back home. In fact the intern that was standing beside me told me that she is very scared and wanted to go home but I explained how are we going back to the mainland in the middle of the night.

It was also during that night that I realized that the driver has "six sense" and he tried to explain that it is late and funny things can happened. But to have him around was quite re-assuring since he told me he can sensed it and have been through such encounters before.

I went back to the resort (I booked a double-storey chalet for the actors and for the girls, for director and AD while the rest of the male crews stayed in Vincent's house)... when I entered into a chalet, shit another goose pimples experience got over me... I heard a girl (my wardrobe assistant) crying and another girl (my production manager) chanting some buddhist mantras upstairs. I asked my assistant producer, Xavier what happened and he told me this:

That while I was busy preparing the ghost scenes in the village... Xavier who stand in as an extra playing a ghost go around and frighten this girl. The girl then got verbally abusive and "cursed" the German Girl. Then she vomited six times. Xavier felt very guilty and told her that he will bring her to German Girl Temple to pray for forgiveness first thing in the morning.

But thats not all, half an hour later Xavier got a call from one of the crews.....

kill the messenger, we're Singaporeans

A caption from the 144th ranking press about the government proposed amendment to the Film Act:

"Under proposed amendments to the Films Act, live film recordings of election rallies, public speeches or processions, as well as anniversary celebration videos by political parties will not be considered as party political films."

drum roll..."BUT THE EVENTS BEING FILMED MUST FIRST BE HELD IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAW."

That means films such as this may be passed.

But films such as this maybe illegal. (For your information this man is now a member of parliament)

This sadly reminds me of those kungfu martial arts movies that the Emperor upon hearing some bad news from a messenger, ordered the guards to chop off the head of the messenger.

So now for filmmakers or video journalists like us we can only film those ra-ra events like politicians kissing babies, shaking hands or youth groups dress up in some weird costumes for national day parade.

But if we choose to record events of some people (especially this chap) holding a protest, we may get ourselves prosecuted for publicizing such incidents.

Of course one of their rationale is that they link the Mumbai terrorist attack where journalist are unwittingly giving information to terrorist holding up in hotels... but man i think they are seriously way off the mark unless I am wrong, that psychopaths who practiced civil disobedience are terrorists too.

One man's meat is another man's poison, good news to some are bad news to others... for instance, if someone managed to record and uploaded a video of a man pushing an old lady down the stairs in an attempt to steal her belongings, does society blame the videographer that it may generate copycat crimes or that people would appreciate the video and warn their old relatives to be more careful.

I just wondered if Burma enact such a similar law prior to the saffron revolution, will the world ever get to see the junta's brutality of dealing with "illegal" protest such as this and this

Hopefully filmmakers and journalists can escape such fate.

For more information, please refer to our deputy chief executive officer of One Nation Under the Film Act.