Ghosts at midnight

Nothing on the top but a bucket and a mop. And an illustrated book about birds. You see a lot up there but don't be scared. Who needs action when you got words?

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The biggest issue I have with the idea of ghosts coming out to haunt you when the clock strikes midnight is simple: timezone. So okay, say you are living somewhere along the Malaysian bank of Sungai Golok in Kelantan and you you take a peek at your watch and hey, it's midnight! Oh my god! So scary! I better cross the river and get into Thailand; it's only 11 o'clock there. Hurry hurry hurry!

Phewh. That was close.

So there you are, chilling at a bar in Golok, looking at the horrors that's happening across in Malaysia. Oh look, it's almost midnight in Thailand, I better swim back to Malaysia. Hantu Siam a lot more scary weyh!

But wait, at what time do ghosts go back into hiding after their ghoulish spree at midnight? Subuh? Okay, cool. Subuh should be at the same time on either bank of the Golok. But isn't that quite unfair to the Siamese ghosts? They get to scare people for 1 hour less than their Malaysian counterpart.

So okay, maybe you could argue that since the Siamese ones are more badass, they can do the same job as the Malaysian ones in less time. Of course, as history shows, Thailand was never invaded by foreign power while we Malaysians got screwed 4 times over.

One of them came on fucking bicycles some more! Damn hipsters.

Here's another thing to take note. Remember how our elders used to remind us that during their time, they woke up as early as 4 in the morning and petang-petang they would stop playing and come running back to the house at 6 o'clock. You know, to show how kids back then are better behaved than our degenerate generation?

Well, here's the thing that is often left unmentioned. Time in Malaysia hasn't always been 8 hours ahead of Greenwich. Up until the break of the Second World War, our time was somewhere between 7 to 7 and a half hours ahead of Greenwich. When the Japanese came, it was 9 hours because Yamashita don't want to reset his watch. Then the British came and changed it back to 7 and a half until finally Mahathir on New Year's Eve 1981, pushed it to 8 hours ahead of Greenwich. Why? Because 8 is auspicious. If you don't believe me, why don't you spend a few minutes pondering how much Malaysia has developed since 1981.

Told you. It has got nothing to do with the lands we invade across the South China Sea. But unfortunately kiasu Singapore said, "How come Malaysia that side is half an hour faster than us meh? Cannot! We also must change our time lor!"

So they did, and so they too got prosperous. Haish!

So anyway, depending on which generation group that said elder came from, their midnight could've been our 12.30, 1.00 or even 2.00 a.m! So back to our ghastly topic, you can see how much more problematic this is to the whole notion of ghosts coming out at midnight to haunt you.

The coup de grace is of course, when you consider the fact that there is always somewhere on God's earth that is currently experiencing midnight. You know, because the Earth is a almost a perfect sphere and it rotates on its axis as it revolves around the Sun and all that? So that means that there are always ghosts going around scaring people at all times?

Doesn't that defeats the whole purpose of the notion that ghosts come out at midnight to haunt you silly?