Kampung Kreepy

Chinese New Year, also known as Lunar New Year or the Spring Festival, falls on Feb. 1 this year, as some of you may know. The festival, which has been observed for around 3,500 years, celebrates the start of a new year in the Chinese calendar. Chinese people and many others of East Asian descent consider it the most important of the traditional festivals. Chinese New Year’s origins are steeped in folklore and myth. According to one popular legend, there was a fearsome horned beast that emerged from the sea every New Year’s Eve to terrorize villages in ancient China. The beast ate people and livestock, and destroyed homes and buildings. The villagers fled to the mountains and hid from the monster during this period. One New Year’s Eve, the residents of a particular village evacuated as per custom. However, they couldn’t persuade an elderly man, a newcomer to the village, to join them. They left without him. When they returned, they were shocked to find the village unharmed. The old ...

I saw  The Company of Wolves recently. It’s a 1984 British anthology film about a young girl who dreams about werewolves. The movie is a little heavy-handed in its symbolism and warning to young women to steer clear of predatory “wolves” in the woods. Its special effects also are dated. However, I still liked it for its dreamlike quality and ominous atmosphere (are European woods really that dark and damp?). The movie did get me thinking about werewolves in general. To be honest, I’ve always felt sorry for the creatures. Let me clarify first that I’m not talking about shape-shifters who can change at will, like Jacob Black’s Quileute tribe in the Twilight flicks. I’m discussing the werewolf as portrayed in movies, who acquires his or her condition through a bite by a (usually unseen) savage animal. In addition to being victims, werewolves have no agency. Their shape-shifting is dictated by the cycles of the moon, and they can’t control themselves once they transform. Because t...

I’ve been a fan of superheroes for a long time. So long, in fact, that I’m now witnessing a new phenomenon. The movie superheroes of my time are aging. And some are dying. It’s bad enough that Marvel killed off Iron Man and the Black Widow in Avengers: Endgame (2019). I watched a few episodes of Hawkeye during a trial period when I got the Disney+ streaming service for free. Hawkeye wears a hearing aid and his age is showing. I also watched Logan (2017) recently. A great movie (I highly recommend it), but depressing as hell. In Logan , Patrick Stewart’s Professor X is a nonagenarian with mental deterioration. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine is an aging alcoholic—his superhuman ability to heal is slowing down, allowing him to be poisoned by the adamantium in his body. Jackman’s version of Wolverine is the only one I’ve ever known. When I think of Wolverine, Jackman’s face is the one I see. The same goes for Robert Downey Jr. and Iron Man. And Scarlet Johansson and the Black Widow. And ...

A few days before Christmas, I impulsively asked fellow urban fantasy fans on Facebook whether they had read The Dark Is  Rising books. The Dark Is Rising is an award-winning children’s fantasy series written by British author Susan Cooper that was first published between 1965 to 1977. I was taken aback by the enthusiastic response to my post. It turns out that there are many, many fans of the series out there. Some fans re-read the series every year. There is even a Facebook group that hosts an annual worldwide readathon of the books starting around the end of November. In addition, I found out that there is a 2007 film adaptation of the series— The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising . However, I was informed by quite a few fans that the movie can’t hold a candle to the books. So what are the books about? I won’t give anything away except to say a group of kids get caught up in the fight between the forces of Light and Dark. The series incorporates Authurian legends and Celtic and ...

It’s almost Christmas. What better time for horror movies than the Yuletide? After all, Yule originally was a pagan mid-winter festival celebrated by pre-Christian Germanic peoples. The early Germans believed that the “Wild Hunt” occurred during the 12 nights of the Yuletide (Dec. 21 to Jan. 1). That was when a host of ghostly hunters rode the night skies led by Odin, whose many roles included the god of the dead. The hunters would mimic the sounds of howling wind and storms as they swept up the souls of the dead as well as any unlucky people and animals that crossed their path. The Yuletide feast was thought to be a sacrifice to secure blessings from Odin and the other gods for abundant crops and livestock in the coming spring. Yule was adopted and adapted by the Christians. However, even as Yuletide became Christmastide, some of the older traditions and customs were retained, such as wassailing and the burning of the log. In the spirit of the Wild Hunt, I have suggestions for ho...

In the fantasy world, Chinese geomancers may be the closest equivalent to wizards such as Gandalf (from Lord of the Rings ) or Albus Dumbledore ( Harry Potter ). An image of the geomancer from Chinese pop culture is that of a man dressed in long robes and armed with a wooden sword. See, for example, geomancers fighting the undead—or “jiangshi”—in the Hong Kong Mr. Vampire movies from the 80s. He immobilizes the walking corpses with his paper talismans. So what exactly is a Chinese geomancer? It’s basically a person skilled in the ancient art of feng shui. It helps if you first know what feng shui is. Feng shui literally means “wind, water” in Chinese. The phrase reportedly originates from The Book of Burial written by a Taoist mystic named Guo Pu (AD 276 – 324). Feng shui principles, though, are believed to have been practiced in China for more than 4,000 years. Feng shui has its roots in Taoism, which is a Chinese philosophy and religion that emphasizes living in harmony with “th...

In this post, I thought I’d explain why the second book in my urban fantasy series is set in a Chinese temple. To be clear, the Heavenly Bridge Temple in The Forgotten Guardian is wholly fictional. There is no temple at the far edge of Washington, D.C.’s Chinatown, as far as I’m aware. I thought it would be an ideal site for Joe and Junie’s next adventure because I’ve always regarded Chinese temples as mysterious places. Where better for magic and mayhem to occur? I’m not particularly religious. However, when I was young, my mother took me with her when she prayed in temples in Singapore. She wasn’t particularly religious either, but she visited certain temples at certain times of the year (usually during Buddhist festivals or Qingming, which is the day people of Chinese descent pay their respects to their ancestors). I can still remember how hazy the temples were inside. The smoke from the candles and incense was so thick it made me cough and my eyes tear up. My fictional temple...