Sightings — Gross National Distress

Sightings

Nadia Florman recalls how women were huddling around when they saw visions of otherworldly beings. She vividly remembers how “they were psyching each other up”. As a preventive measure workers would suggest to each other to “baca baca(pray).”¹

Accounts of visions seen by workers are also found in these articles presented below.

Aihwa Ong speaks of how work apparatuses that were usually utilised for labour became a “cinema” for otherworldly visions.

“The microscope, which after hours of use becomes an instrument of torture, sometimes disclosed spirits lurking within.”²

Other reasons for spirits making their presence known could be traced to disturbances that arose from the manufacturing process. The tools of labour become instruments of invitation to the spirits.

“Unleashed, these vengeful beings were seen to threaten women for transgressing into the zone between the human and nonhuman world, as well as modern spaces formerly the domain of men. By intruding into hitherto forbidden spaces, Malay women workers experienced anxieties about inviting punishment.”³

Nadia Florman recalls how incidents would occur near the “witching hour” which was around dawn. She recalls how there would be “black things” flying in and out of levels that were inhabited by spirits. Sometimes women would run into the canteen exclaiming that they saw “something”. This would subsequently start a chain of reactions. Some workers would faint. Workers would sometimes speculate that the affected individual was on the receiving end of a curse(kena mata). Nadia Florman was at times also cautioned by fellow workers to “jagah jagah(take care of herself)” because she might have been a subject of envy.

Women would also experience bouts of “melatah”. Initially, “Latah” was categorised in the DSM IV(Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) as a culture bound syndrome. This label has since been removed. Nadia recalls how certain workers would start to go into “melatah” and start to speak in a different language. Some would start to move in a manner that is associated with Kuda Kepang(ritual practice to raise the semangat(spirit/inner wind) of participants).

In consideration of this, I tried to match these descriptions with images that were created in the golden era of Malay cinema in Singapore. This industry ceased to exist just as industrialisation was taking off in Singapore. This was an attempt to bring together images with descriptions in hopes of finding potential resonances.

As Singapore transitioned into a cultural rebrand after independence, the golden age of Malay cinema came to an end. The two major studios ceased production by the year 1973. An important year for this research. Malay Film Productions by Shaw Brothers was first to shut down in 1969. Cathay-Keris stopped production of narrative films in 1973 but continued to produce state commissioned works before finally shutting down entirely in 1977.

These Malay films often reflected issues faced by the local population. Sometimes artistic liberties occured because the films were initially directed by international directors. Script advisors or crew members would sometimes give these directors tips to enhance the authenticity of these films.

The significance of the film Hantu Jerangkung to this research can be attributed to its portrayal of spirit possession. Interestingly the bomoh(medicine man/person) who exorcises the affected individual is female. Bodies of young healthy females become vessels to be controlled in this film by forces of ill intentions.

The scene starts with the unsuspecting female attempting to close the windows of her home. The hantu(which is supposed to resemble the devil) appears out of nowhere and gives the character, Ramlah, a fright. I am not able to provide sufficient possession theory on this scene but the reaction of the Ramlah’s actions seem to me like what Nadia Florman describes as “melatah”. Ramlah is first seen screaming in fear and then these screams transition into cackles. Similar to descriptions about MPI in the factories, incidents like these tend to involve the affected individual adopting a persona that is fearless and assertive. A stark contrast to the docile and subservient image projected onto the workers by the firms. Later in the sequence, Ramlah is eventually physically confronted by other villagers who she easily fends off. Super strength is also a trait that is often attributed to these episodes of spirit possession.

This gave me the idea to string several images to develop a sense of what MPI in the factories could have been like. I drew from other visual sources to create a sequence that would supposedly simulate incidents of MPI. Archival and documentary footage were drawn from two sources, Andrea Hricko and Ken Light’s documentary, Working for your life and several snippets from Diary of a Nation created by the Singapore Broadcast Corporation. I drew from two fiction films, Hantu Jerangkung and Two Sides of the bridge to create the scenes of fainting and possession. I added the blur effect on the images to indicate my distance to this subject matter and point out that this exercise is not supposed to reflect any sort of “truth”. This is a method to think about these incidents through images that already exist.

_{1. Interview with Nadia Florman conducted by Shaza Ishak, 2025.

2-3. Ong, Aihwa. “The Production of Possession: Spirits and the Multinational Corporation in Malaysia.” American Ethnologist, vol. 15, no. 1, Feb. 1988.}