continuing with the short list of the more popular ghosts . . .

pee5 bawb1 ผีปอบ – The word bawb2 ปอบ means ‘evil’. Any ghost can be evil. Remember the movie The Ring? Yeap, that’s a pee bawb. And the spirit inside of the little girl in the Exorcist? Also a pee bawb. Or the ghost of the girl you accidentally killed which sits on your shoulders, causing strange weight gain and neck pain like in the movie Shutter? Yeap, also a pee bawb.

bret2 เปรต – This is the ghost of a person who in their living life was greedy, preoccupied with material attachments (food, money, power, sex). So as a punishment in death, they have a large always hungry stomach but a really tiny straw-like mouth, meaning they’ll never again be satisfied. They are typically very very tall, and sometimes make a slight whistling sound when they breathe due to the small mouth size. If you hear whistling at night, leave food out to distract these aggressive ghosts so they do not harm anyone.

pee5 praai1 ผีพราย – This is the spirit of a woman who died during childbirth, such as the one in the movie Naang Nak. She’s considered very evil and violent.

There are a few more ghosts that are the same as that in western culture, so I won’t go into detail.

pee5 dib2 ผีดิบ – zombie

bpee1sat2 ปีศาจ – demon

win1yaan1 วิญญาณ – soul/spirit (as a ghost, not the type found in the living)

pee5 ta4leh1 ผีทะเล – a pervert (it has nothing to do with ghosts, but often joked about as a pun)

This is by far one of my favorite Thai commercials; it goes through many of the Thai ghosts. Notice the really tall one hungrily staring at their food – which ghost is that?