M A C V A Y S I A

John Darling, a nice Australian who just happens to read my blog, once told me a story about his time in Malaysia (then Malaya) with the military many years ago. He said something about seeing a strange creature somewhere, something like a yeti. I thought it was probably just an orang utan—literally person of the jungle. Or maybe it really was a person of the jungle, one of the local natives. Or someone playing a trick or something like that.

Or was it?

Tonight he sent me this link: Malaysian teams to track ‘bigfoot’. Here’s an excerpt:

Malaysia plans to send two teams of scientists to scour its southern rainforests and track down a huge ape said to have been spotted there.

‘Bigfoot’ fever has dominated Malaysian newspaper headlines for several weeks now.

There have been several dramatic sightings of a hairy, gorilla-like creature reported in the thick forest in the southern state of Johor.

One local man says he saw a three metre tall ape standing on two legs beside a river, according to one newspaper.

And then this:

“The national park is as big as Singapore island,” said Vincent Chow, who works in the area and has often lobbied the State Government to investigate past sightings.

“It’s quite possible there is something there.”

The Endau-Rompin national park, where the sightings were reported, sprawls over an area of about 490 square kilometres.

“Natives who live in the jungle have seen it for generations and their legends call it the snaggle-toothed ghost,” said Mr Chow.

Now, I’m as skeptical as the next guy (whoever that is), but you just never know, eh? I mean, Malaysians are a pretty supersitious lot. They see things—ghosts, pontianak, giant snakes (like the one that was supposed to be under a supermarket in Muar), etc.—all the time. But that’s just the thing: even if the local natives have been seeing a giant ape-like creature on and off for generations, who would believe them anyway?

I still doubt there’s any truth to the story, but it sure is interesting. I remember being terrified of the sasquatch when I was a kid. I even had a dream, when I was about four or five, in which I came in from playing outside only to find nobody around. I found everyone from my street (which at the time was pretty much everyone I knew, execpt for family members who lived elsewhere) sitting in the basement. They told me to get out before the sasquatch came back, but suddenly we heard a loud banging sound from upstairs. The basement door opened and the big footsteps started banging slowly down the stairs as everyone gasped in horror. When the creature got down into the basement, I finally saw the great sasquatch standing before me. It looked exactly like Sweetums from the Muppet Show. Hey, try telling a four- or five-year-old that isn’t terrifying. I’m sure I wet the bed that night.

I wonder if they’ll find Sweetums living in the jungles of Malaysia?