Article Extract:-
She screams at cockroaches and mice. Her friends called her timid. Yet when night falls, customer relation officer Chua Hwee Li 23, goes out looking for ghosts with fellow Asia Paranormal Investigators. (API)
Armed with scientific gadgets like temperature sensors and trifield meters, she and the other investigators tried to prove the existence of ghosts. “Our investigations are based on research, history and science. If there is a ghost,. the temperature of the air will dip.” she explains. ” And trifield meter can detect movement in the air.”

Most of the time, their ghost sightings turn out to be flatly explainable. Once they were send a photo with an ‘extra’ hanging in the background of a group photo taken in Marina Bay MRT station. After an on-site inspection, they realised that the ‘girl;’ came from an reflection of a bah kwa poster (roasted pork jerky) advertisement poster.

Other times, the results were inconclusive at best. – dips in temperature can be explained by cold air seeping in through cracks, for example, Hwee Li remains convinced that there are spirits out there and the investigators will be able to prove their existence eventually.

After all, she has seen afew, she says. Her first encounter was 15, in her old home in Tampines. One night, she saw two women – one young and one old, with a baby on the granny’s lap.

Frightened she left the room and told her mum, who told her “there was no such things as ghosts!” But their superstitious maid later took her aside to told her that she has seen the ghostly trio before. Hwee Li can’t think of any rational explanation for her “sighting”.

Since then, she has been intrigued by them. She surfed the internet for reports and count The Amityville Horror as one of her all-time favourite movies. Does it sound like a self-fulfilling prophesy, where she thinks she can see ghosts, and so she does? But Hwee Li insist she isn’t very imaginative. (“I am not even creative, I can’t draw or write”.) so it isn’t all in her mind. She claims “I see ghosts only when I am down on my luck.” “What do they looked like?” “Like humans but very pale.”

This passion to see ghost has caused her afew run-ins with the living. During her early days of ghost hunting, she quarreled with her parents who disapproved of her hobby. “They were superstitious and were afraid I would bring a evil spirit home,” she recalled. She also broke up with her then boyfriend, who hated that she spends more time with her ghost-hunting buddies than him.

These days, out of respect for her parents, who have a Japanese shrine in their home, Hwee Li makes sure she says a prayer before she enters the door and showers immediately. The Chinese believe that you should clean yourself to get rid of her negative energies.

Besides investigations, she is also API’s events planner for its fortnightly ghost tours. “People are surprised when they found out this is my interest.” They sometimes says ” ‘Chi bao mei shi zuo!’ (mandarin to imply she got nothing better to do.) ” she says, laughing.

Lest you think getting spooked out is the only thing she does in her free time, she’s quick to point out she also makes time for her new boyfriend. “We watch movies,” she offers, ” What kind?” “Horror, of course.”