Day Of The Dead - Filipino Halloween and Other Creepy Myths & Monsters

Pea explains how Filipinos celebrate the Day of the Dead instead of Halloween, then launches into an extended deep dive on Filipino superstitions and mythical creatures. What starts funny gets genuinely dark — she reveals that magical thinking has real-world consequences, including children going missing near bridge construction sites because of a belief that burying children in foundations strengthens concrete.

Filipino Day of the Dead vs. Western Halloween ​

• Halloween is mainly a US/Canada/UK tradition; the Philippines follows its Spanish roots
• Filipinos celebrate "Undas": All Saints Day (November 1) and All Souls Day (November 2)
• About a week before, families clean relatives' graves — new flowers, sweeping dust and dirt
• On All Souls Day, they bring candles and food to burial sites and pray for their souls
• If a family has money, they bring the dead person's favorite meal and leave it on the grave
• If a family is poor (like Pea's was), they give the dead a few minutes to eat, then devour the food themselves
• Pea jokes she was always relieved none of the food got eaten by ghosts
• Families also tell stories about deceased relatives to keep their memories alive
• The similarity with the West: both sides love scary movies and ghost stories this time of year

Pea's main thesis: Filipino superstitions aren't just folklore — most Filipinos genuinely believe them and live their lives according to them ​

• "My culture is more about tradition than about discovering the truth"
• Filipinos don't require a high bar for evidence; whatever your neighbor says carries as much weight as legitimate research

The Aswang — fetus-eating monster ​

• A demon that can smell pregnant women and disguise itself as a beautiful woman
• When it strikes, it becomes a demon with an impossibly long tongue that creeps into the bedroom while the woman sleeps and feeds on the fetus, causing miscarriages
• Pea's joke: "Given the population here, I'd say Aswang has been neglecting her duties"
• Defenses: garlic placed around the sleeping woman (apparently ruins the taste of fresh fetus), or the father standing outside or under the house completely nude, furiously waving a sword all night
• Pea's take on the nude sword defense: "seems like nothing more than a punishment for getting her in that condition to begin with"

Usog — the danger of complimenting babies ​

• If you make too much fuss over a Filipino baby — complimenting its looks or interacting too long — you'll make the child sick (called "usog")
• Before complimenting a baby, you must say the counter-spell to create a "barrier" against harmful energy
• If the child still gets sick, the cure is having the offending adult smear their saliva on the baby's forehead
• Pea notes: in the West, smearing bodily fluids on a stranger's baby would land you in jail and on a sex offender list

Elves who steal children's spirits ​

• If you let children play outdoors around noon, elves living in the dirt may take a liking to them
• Instead of grabbing the child, they cast a spell to make it sick and die, then steal its spirit
• Pea's personal memory: her mother kept her indoors when she was behaving; when Pea became unruly, her mother told her to "go play in the dirt"

Forest creatures and how to navigate their territory ​

• Dwarves, fairies, dwata, tikbalang — all easily offended if you disturb the peace
• Protection: walk cautiously and say "tabi tabi po" (excuse me) every few steps
• Especially important if you need to relieve yourself on a bush — they don't appreciate "acid rain on their heads"
• If they're offended, they'll make you walk in circles forever
• Countermeasure to escape: take off your clothes and turn them inside out, and the path out will appear
• Pea's observation: "Telling a pretty young woman who's lost in a forest that the only way out is to strip is something only a brilliant Filipino would come up with"

The Kapre — a tree-dwelling cigar-smoking giant ​

• Up to 9 feet tall, dark skin, hairy, foul body odor
• Despite this, he's somehow a ladies' man who tries to convince beautiful women to live in his tree
• If rejected, he stalks the woman for life — "just like a regular guy"
• Upside: he carries a magical stone that grants wishes

Death and funeral superstitions ​

• Never take food home from a wake — not even a piece of candy — or misfortune and possibly the dead person's spirit will follow you home
• Don't go directly home from a wake; visit other locations first to shake the ghost
• Pea recommends stopping at a government office "because even the dead don't want to wait 5 hours just to speak to someone about a $2 parking ticket"
• Before leaving for the wake, leave a different outfit in your yard so you can change clothes outside before entering — this confuses the ghost
• Pea notices a pattern: "Whoever's coming up with all these rules always includes something about public nudity. And I bet he's laughing his butt off watching everyone run around naked"
• She says she's decided to be cremated to spare her friends and family the hassle

Marriage superstitions ​

• The bride can't try on her wedding dress until the day of the ceremony — imagine Western women having to guess the fit
• No sharp or pointed objects as wedding gifts — believed to cause marriage failure (Pea: makes sense, since giving a knife to a woman whose dress just exploded under pressure isn't smart)
• Giving a chamber pot as a wedding gift brings good luck — Pea: "after the divorce, the man will still have a pot to piss in"

Rapid-fire random superstitions Filipinos actually believe ​

• Jump on New Year's Eve and you'll grow taller
• Smile or have fun on Good Friday and your wounds won't heal if injured
• Go to bed hungry and your spirit leaves your body to search for food, becoming trapped in another dimension
• When knocking on a Filipino's door, announce yourself to prove you're human, not a demon "or evil creature coming to sell them life insurance"
• Sleep with wet hair and you'll go insane
• Photo of three people: the middle person will die first
• Pregnant woman looks at beautiful people, baby will be attractive; looks at ugly person, baby will be ugly
• Step over a sleeping person and they stop growing
• Cut hair or clip nails after dark: 9 days bad luck
• Drop a spoon: a woman is coming to visit; drop a fork: a man; drop a knife: Pea wonders "maybe a ladyboy"
• Point at a tree and you anger invisible creatures; only cure is to bite your own finger — the more it hurts, the safer you are

The dark real-world consequence: children going missing near bridge construction ​

• Urban legend (with real effects): building a bridge requires putting children's bodies in the foundation so their blood mixes with concrete to make it stronger

• Children should be "harvested" from the local population for maximum protection

• When Pea was a child, there was a rash of children going missing when a bridge was being built in her area

• Her mother actually kept her from playing outside until the bridge was completed

• She asks: "Can you imagine growing up with the fear that you'd be snatched away from your family and buried in a bridge so your blood would improve motor vehicle safety?"

• Pea closes with a personal note: it's her father's birthday, and since he died 32 years ago, she doesn't have many stories to tell — but since it's the Day of the Dead, she's going to pay her respects

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