'True Orange ghost stories'

How well versed are you in your Asian ghost folklore? Well, can you guess what is associated with:

A frangipani

A steel pin


and Senior editor JL?

If you guessed Pontianak, then well done! Go get yourself a glass of orange juice.

A Pontianak is a type of vampire in Malay folklore. In folklore, Pontianak often appears as a beautiful and at times seductive woman, usually accompanied by the strong scent of frangipani. According to myth, men who are not wary will be killed or castrated when she morphs into a hideous being.

People believe that having a sharp object like a nail helps them fend off potential attacks by pontianaks, the nail being used to plunge a hole at the back of the pontianak's neck. It is believed that when a nail is plunged into the back of a pontianak's neck, she will turn into a beautiful woman, until the nail is pulled off again.


But why JL you might ask? Well, JL is a beauteous lady of a senior editor, with pale skin and long luxurious jet black hair that flows to her waist. She is elegant in movement, almost floating and gliding around, rather than walking, as mere mortals do. JL is also known to stay back in the Orange till the wee hours of the morning by herself, slaving over a stone cold manuscript that has become as morbidly peaceful as a tombstone and poring over a final proof that has diffused the pungent sickly sweet fragrance of a frangipani flower.

But, as an urban legend has it, it was her exercising behaviour while JL was still a student at university, that led to her being manifested as the 'pontianak'. Apparently, JL loved to go running around the track late at night, all clad in white, with her trademark sweeping tresses all bouncing up and down as she pounded the track in her trainers.

Students who were walking past, or making out under a tree somewhere, at that unearthly hour of the day, swore black and blue that they had 'seen' a pontianak, when all the while it was JL.

Spoooky...

Back to earth now, bringing us to the latter part of this post -

"Pontianak has left the Orange."

JL's farewell card, with her as a hula girl

Sizing up her potential 'victims'

"Mmm, you look like a good feed, BB"

"You are mine now... forever! Muahahah!"

"Ahh, WM, in you I have created my replacement 'killer'!"

"Do not resist, RB Shevchenko, for resistance is futile. All men are easy prey for my lethal charms!"

"Ah MV, don't struggle fair maiden, you know that you want to join me! Muahaha!"

"Yes JE, relax, submit, and enjoy the embrace... of the pontianak!"

Mirror, mirror on the wall, which of these fair maidens will be next to leave us all?

Er, actually the fair prince, RC is next to leave, this coming Monday in fact

Fare well, JL, it's been 4 and a half haunting years for you in the Orange...