For such powerful supernatural creatures, ghosts are very culturally specific. What scares people in one country might end up being laughed at in another. As proof of this, I present this wonderfully funny commercial featuring a whole bunch of Thai ghosts. I came across the ad while writing a ghost story set in Thailand.

I spent two years in Thailand as a Peace Corps Volunteer and can state that while the ghosts seem funny in the commercial--which is the intention, to show that ghosts are not scary when seen in the light--few Thai people would laugh if they ran into these ghosts on a dark country road.

The commercial also contains a Thai-specific joke about a "jackfruit ghost," which is a pun on the Thai slang word for a cheap street prostitute (many of whom evidently used to hang around jackfruit trees in old Bangkok). The translation printed on the screen at this point--which reads "transvestite"--is wrong and was created by someone with a poor grasp of the language. Instead, when the kid asks if that is a jackfruit ghost, his father merely says "human" in Thai.