Momok!

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This writer was around 12 or 13 when he took to trimming his toenails at night seated in a rattan settee in this veranda at our Bedok kampong house. Our father was seated just across and promptly reminded me: "Boy don't cut your nails at night or the momok* will come (for you)". Was thinking this was just some superstition to disregard but when I glanced around the darkness outside the house and realised the silhouette of banana trees just about 30 feet away, I thought I'd better stop doing my nails and stop I did, just to be safe than sorry! (*momok means ghostly spectre or supernatural being)


1965 photo

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