MALAYSIAN SONNET 45: TELL TALES: GHOSTS & VIXENS

You gossip ghost tales, I follow your freak;

Gather all to heart, you feel tongue-in-cheek.

Ghost is not true ghost, angels fall from form;

Monsters and freaks are adored more than norm.

Tears are seen in smile, calm hide in illness;

Streak of jokes and farce, give vent to sadness.

Herein lies the tang, who else can savour;

Who dare to savour, who care to favour.

Versions of ghost tales, yours and mine differ;

Shot down by your jets, fear and rage quiver.

The might makes it right, war threat to decide;

Allies on your side, pride cause weird divide.

Pleasure, anger, sorrow and joy : all meet;

Gather awe in our hearts, smiles and tears greet.

Note:

Liaw (chat) Zhai (in a room) is a book (about 500 stories) written by Pu Songling in 1740, Qing Dynasty. It was a book about ghosts, monsters, vixens etc , with moral lessons. There was a song and lyric in a later movie. The title of the Song, SHUO LIAW ZHAI, literally meaning telltales in tea rooms. The Chinese word for SHOU, has two radicals: the left side is Yan, meaning to tell; the right radical is DUI, meaning to cash out. In other words, what you said could be cash out, meaning your honoured the spoken words.

Lately, we hear lots of stories about the feared Chinese metrological balloons, but reckoned as spy balloons, with sinister motives. In fact US has been sending such balloons all over the world as “civil” or “commercial” use. The Chinese send in weather balloons to test US reaction. They were shot down, if the jets did not missed. In other words, US shoot at :civil” flying objects over their sky. This is indirect permission for others to shoot at their balloons , without prejudice. The bombardment of the steam pipeline by US showed the great nation was far from telling the truth all the time. The Song was quoted as a parody of US might: You tell ghost stories, We also tell ghosts stories; the ghosts is not that ghosts, and the monsters are not that monsters. It may be easy to invite ghosts into your house, but problems to evict them.

The pictures are copied-pasted from the web, with appreciation to their owners. The magical or mythical stories are quite interesting to read or watch.