Uncle Lóng was working as a night watchman at some point — I must’ve been 12 by then.
It was some empty building sitting in the middle of nowhere — maybe in some ulu/backwater part of Singapore like Chua(/Choa) Chu Kang in the then-marshland north-west side. Perhaps that’s why it needed a night watchman, to ensure no squatters came and took over the place.
He had to walk some distance through some kind of scrubland / wasteland. After dark, of course, since it was a night watch.
Uncle Lóng might be fat and big, but he was terrified of ghosts. The Chinese call it “small courage” 膽小 / 胆小 dǎnxiǎo. (膽 / 胆 dǎn / gall bladder, guts)
He claimed that during his watch he’d hear footsteps on the floor above, pacing up and down across the floor, all through the night. He even said that one night a leg crashed through the ceiling, and sat there, dangling — nothing the next day in the bright daylight.
So he took the biggest hand torch that was available: industrial size ones, at least a foot long.
He’d walk through the scrubland shining one torch in front to see where he was going.
And shine the second one behind him.
The logic is: if it’s not pitch black behind him, it’s not so scary.
Haha haha I love the logic.
(Singapore, 1960s)
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