The Cat Story

During my recent trip to the Tabin Wildlife Reserve, I befriended a pensioner, Bryan Paul Lai. He was once a school teacher and he last worked as the Headmaster of St. Patrick Primary School, Tawau until his retirement in 1998. He loves writing and he launched his first book entitled “The Joy of Life: The Land Below the Wind” in June 2014 (Read here).

His story is similar to another book called “Footprints in the Paddy Fields“ written by a Sabahan lady writer, Tina Kisil. She too was once a school teacher. I can relate to many of the incidences she talked about in the book especially the paddy planting season (Read here).

“The Joy of Life: The Land Below the Wind” is a story of Bryan’s childhood in Sandakan and Tawau during the 1940’s and 1950’s. Bryan also wrote about the horrific times in Sabah during the Japanese Occupation from 1941 to 1945.

This book evoked many memories of my childhood days spent in the village. We were carefree and also engaged in playing many similar games and antics to pass our time those days. One particular incident that he wrote reminded me of the Cat Story. He wrote about the death of his Pilipino grand-uncle:

“When my grand-uncle Rodriguez died in 1954, I was there and was instructed to sit by the side of the coffin to prevent any cat from jumping over the body. It  was believed that if a cat jumped over a body, the dead body would resurrect”.

I discover that the “strictly no cat is allowed to jump over a dead body” is almost something of a universally accepted perception or even belief system. I was told even at my tender age by my mother that a dead body should never be jumped over by a cat. We were always warned of the dreadful consequence of seeing a “walking dead” if a cat somehow accidentally jumped over the dead body! In those days, whenever someone died and his body would be kept in the house until burial. All cats would be gathered and caged to prevent such unfortunate disaster from happening!

When I recollect such tale of a dead body being resurrected by a cat, I cannot help but think of the fright and horror moment in my childhood days of watching those Chinese movies that featured the Jiangshi (殭屍) or the Chinese “hopping” zombie. The Jiangshi was often portrayed as a stiff corpse dressed in the official garment of the Qing Dynasty. It moved only in forward direction with its arms outstretched.

All kinds of explanation have been put forward to explain the veracity of this belief system. Once I heard someone gave a more scientific explanation: When the cat fur rubs against the corpse as it jumps over the body, it would induce static electricity. The electric charge if sufficiently large would cause the body to be lifted up. This is similar to rubbing a comb with the hair and then place it over pieces of small paper. The pieces of small paper would jump and hop about like the hopping Jiangshi! Incredible explanation!

Until these days, this belief system is still being faithfully followed. The most recent is during the death of my father-in-law.  Even though this is a myth, it is still hard to do away with this practice simply because no one dares to conduct a verification exercise by putting a cat to jump over a dead body!

When this Cat Story first momentarily crossed my mind after reading Bryan’s story, I was reminded of a marriage vow uttered during the wedding of my son with his bride at the recent beach wedding (Read here):

“………… I will still love you even when you become a zombie…………”.

I admit I have practically forgotten most of what’s said in the vow, but this very phrase somehow is unique and is difficult to forget!