Monthly Archives: April 2018

Scream in the hospital

Nationality: Singapore
Age: 22
Occupation: USC student
Residence: CA
Performance Date: 3/9/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Jeff, my friend from Singapore, shared one of his personal experience with me, which took place in an abandoned hospital near his house. The hospital had been abandoned for 3 years, but it still hadn’t been removed. The facilities in the hospital hadn’t been totally moved out, which made it look no different from other hospitals. However, the building was out of electricity, so it seemed quite creepy at night. There were many rumors about why this hospital wasn’t removed, and the most popular one was that there were ghosts of patients who died in the hospital haunting there. Thus, the hospital became one of the most famous local “haunted house,” and many people went there for ghost hunting. Jeff’s story is actually about one of his ghost hunting experience.

Here goes Jeff’s story: My friend and I decided to go on an adventure to the hospital at night. We wanted to check if there really exised ghosts. But actually I didn’t want to do that because I wasn’t brave enough. I was actually afraid of ghost, but my friend just said “you are a coward if you don’t come with me”, so I was forced to go with him. After we entered the building, we checked the first floor and the second floor, but we saw nothing strange except medical facilities left all over the place. I actually heard something from the basement, a slight voice sounded like people chatting. I was really nervous. I wanted to go back. But my friend insisted to check the basement; he seemed to have heard nothing. After we entered the basement, I saw several spirit tablets on the table, then I immediately realized that it was the morgue. I didn’t feel very well while still hearing the little noise. I wanted to go back. However, my friend wanted to check if there were corps left there, but we found nothing. My friend saw the spirit tablet too, and he took one out to played with it. I said, “NO! you shouldn’t do that, it’s not respectful to the dead!” But he just said, “Oh you are afraid of this? Shame on you!” I was pissed off, went outside the hospital and returned to my friend’s car. I played with my phone for a while to divert the attention, and suddenly I heard some noises behind the car, I looked back and saw a man with a horrifying face! I was freaked out! But it only turned out to be my friend using the flashlight to light his face to scare me! He laughed at my reaction, “Oh you are such a pussy! I even heard you scream while you left the hospital! Too afraid to walk alone?” I was confused, “What? I didn’t scream!” Then my friend stopped laughing, and there was a weird silence between us. If it wasn’t me, who else could make that scream?

Jeff believed that the scream was made by a ghost in the hospital, who was disturbed by their “adventure.” He said that after this experience, he started to believe in the existence of ghost, and he had never tried ghost hunting ever again to disturb the dead. It seems that Jeff is really affected by this experience. In my opinion, this is not a true “ghost” story, because it doesn’t directly show the existence of ghost. However, the story has many elements, such as derelict hospitals and ghost hunting quest, which are similar to other supernatural events. Derelict hospitals are always related with ghosts because there were many people died in hospitals, and their spirits haunt the place where they died. According to local tradition, the spirit tablet is placed in hospitals to appease the dead. But in the story Jeff’s friend misplaced it and definitely disturbed the dead, which can explain why they encountered strange things. Also, during the “ghost hunting” quest, the participants are usually nervous and flustered, so they may sometimes mistreat some natural phenomena as supernatural events. In the story, the scream that Jeff’s friend heard might be only the sound of the wind, but they were so nervous that they mistook the sound of wind for the scream of ghost.

Highway Couple

Nationality: China
Age: 18
Occupation: USC student
Residence: CA
Performance Date: 3/8/2018
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Peter is a friend of mine from Wuxi, China. He does not believe in ghost, but he really likes to collect ghost stories by checking the local ghost story forum. In fact, he knows nearly all the ghost stories in his hometown. Therefore, I asked him to tell me one of the most scary ghost stories that he knew. After hearing my request, Peter smiled and said, “I’ll tell you one that will definitely scare you.”

As peter said, there is a mountain in Wuxi named Mountain Lotus, which is said to be a place to execute the condemned criminals in earlier times. It is now definitely haunted by ghosts of those who died there. Strange things often happen there, like, many people go missing in that mountain. There is a highway around that mountain, and local residents NEVER drive on that highway at night. But there is once a foreign couple who don’t know the rules. They drive on that highway late at night to rush to another city. While the husband is driving, the wife is complaining about the husband’s failure in business. The husband wants the wife to shut up, but the wife just never stops. The husband is pissed off, so he kicks his wife out of his car, and drives away. After driving a while, he starts to worry about his wife. After all, it is not safe to leave her alone on the highway at night, so he drives back and gladly sees his wife waiting at the same place. He apologizes and the couple sets off again, while soon they witness a lady with long hair waving her hand towards them on one side of the road. The wife suddenly says, “That lady is so poor, we should give her a ride.” But the husband hesitates because it is really weird for a woman to be alone on the highway at this time. The husband then notices that the lady is waving her hands with the palm facing her face (Peter waves his hand in the same way here). The husband suddenly realizes something and says “No! We cannot give her a ride! Look at the way she waves her hand! I’ve heard that only ghosts wave hands like that!” (Peter adds here:”You know that in Wuxi we have tales that ghost’s palms are the opposite side of their hands”). Hearing what the husband says, the wife slowly turns her face towards him, and makes a horrifying smile, “You are right!” She then claps with the back of her hands (Peter claps his hands in the same way here, which freaks me out)

According to Peter, he knew the story by watching a ghost story video on a local ghost story forum. He said that he was freaked out too at the first time he saw the video, especially by the horrifying gesture. He then loved to share this story to others, because it could successfully frighten people(at least succeeded on me). I personally had two interpretations of the story’s ending. The first was that when the wife is outside of the car, she is possessed by a ghost; another explanation was that the husband actually never finds his wife at all, but instead finds a ghost taking the shape of his wife. However, I doubted the authenticity of this story. In my opinion, it could not be the real experience of anyone in the story because the ending was too ambiguous. If the story was real, at least we should be told what happens to the husband at last. I think it was just a horror story made up by people to remind couples to live harmoniously, or otherwise they would end miserably like the couple in the story.

La Llorona

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: California
Performance Date: 4/2/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

The following version of La Llorona was collected from a close friend. She is 20 years old and was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. Her family was originally from Mexico and they still visit there constantly. The story of La Llorona is a quite common one in Mexico and around the South Western United States. Many versions have been circulated which differ, this version is the one she was always told as a child by her parents. From what I make of her story it is very similar to my own and many that I have heard told before. The major themes surrounding suicide, death and marriage are all found in her version. The interview took place in person and I will denote myself as “A” in the interview and my friend as “B”. The interview went as follows.

A: “Ok, please tell me about your own version of the story of La Llorona.”

B: “Ok, so this is the version I have come to know ever since I was a little girl. All my family tells it this way and everyone near my family’s home in Texas also tell it pretty similar to my own. It begins with a Mexican woman, she doesn’t really have a name but we call her Llorona because of the story. She was extremely poor and her family could not support her on her own so she had to go out and find a husband. She found a white man probably from the United States who was looking to marry a Mexican woman. They instantly got married and moved into a house in town and had a lot of children.”

A: “Do you know how many exactly?”

B: “No, not really it changes depending on who tells the story. Its definitely more than three though… at least in the stories I have been told. Anyways, so the man became very disinterested in her and cheated on her and would abuse her when they were in the house. She began to despise him with everything and for some reason she translated that anger over into her children. One day when her husband was away she decided to take her children to the river down by their house. While they were there she went “loca” (crazy) and in a fit of rage she drowned her children in the river. After realizing what she did she took her own life by drowning herself in the very same river. From now on it is said that La Llorona walks the river moaning out in sadness for her children. She hates seeing other children that are not her own so if a child finds themselves alone when they hear her she is said to drown them and kill them out of jealousy.”

A: “Wow great version! But what do you make of it yourself?”

B: “In all honesty I know its just a legend. It is not actually true that a crying woman kills children near rivers. It’s just a way Mexican parents scare their kids from doing bad things. I mean I know I had nightmares about her when I was younger.”

Los Penitentes

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 76
Occupation: Retired Police Officer
Residence: New Mexico
Performance Date: 3/29/2018
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

To provide some context for the following story it was collected from my grandfather on my mother’s side. He is currently 76 and the story he is telling was from when he was a young adult around the age of 21 while he was living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The story contains many allusions to Hispanic themes such as  s a “Penitente” which is a person who beats himself with a whip for his sins. The story was collected over a Skype call originally in Spanish which I have translated and recorded below. I will differentiate dialogue by using “A” for my grandfather and “B” for myself. Personally I am not sure what to make of the story. It definitely shows that the religious history of New Mexico really does play a role in our storytelling as you will soon read. I also do believe that whatever my grandfather saw that night was true because he was extremely genuine during the interview and was not too sure of what to make of it himself. The interview went as follows.

B: “So Grandpa what ghost story are you telling me today”

A: “I am going to tell you about the story of me and the Penitente.”

B: “Ok sounds interesting, go ahead and tell me the story.”

A: “It started back when I was teenager, a year or two after I graduated from High School. I had been working at a mechanic shop on Central Avenue and the owner was looking to promote me cause I had been working there for a few years. So in order to see if I was ready to handle the shop by myself he told me to go ahead and takeover as manager during the night shift the next day. Now to give a little bit of a history to what happened the next day, you have to understand that the road the shop lied on was said to be haunted. Many people claimed that a spirits of los Penitentes still roamed the streets. It was said that they used to walk the road up to the church whipping themselves everyday for hours this was back before the city became what it is today. Ok now back to my story….the next day I showed up around 5pm for the shift and the manager handed over his keys and told me good luck and specifically to make sure that I was the last person out of the shop. I told him, of course, and he went ahead and left. The whole shift ran smooth, not too much business because most people tend not to need mechanics at night, so in order to save on labor expenses I told the other two guys working with me to go ahead and go home. I was closing shop a little early because I was trying to rush out to go do something which I don’t remember what it was. So I’m left alone at the shop and it’s dark outside, I don’t really remember the exact time. Now I had parked down the road a little ways because my boss got angry whenever we took up customer parking so I had somewhat of a trek to make. As I was walking I noticed another man across on the other side of the road from me walking the same direction. I didn’t think much of it but I was being cautious and watching him like anyone walking alone at night would do. That is when things began to get  very strange. As I looked across the road I noticed the man was whipping himself with some type of white rope or belt. Each time he swung it he did not even flinch which was what I thought was strange because it seemed as if he did not even feel it. Before I knew it I had accidentally followed him up the road to the church at the end. I decided to follow him secretly to see where he went which led me into the graveyard. As I watched him the man walked over to a particular grave fell onto his knees in front of it and just disappeared from sight. I instantly jumped up, half expecting him to just be hiding behind a grave…but when I went to go look for him he was nowhere to be found. All that I did find however was the white rope in front of the unmarked grave he fell in front of.”

B: “Wow did you ever find out who he was or why he was there?”

A: “Sort of… I took the rope the next day back to the priest of the church to ask him. All he could say was that the rope was a Penitente rope used back in the 1800s when Albuquerque was still under Spanish rule. He also explained to me that the unmarked graves were those of los Penitentes that lived near the church and would walk up the road whipping themselves.”

B: “And what do you make of all this?”

A: “I am still not sure with absolute certainty if I really did witness what I did. I mean I would not have believed myself either if I had not seen it with my own two eyes. But I do really think that it was a spirit of a Penitente. I don’t know perhaps he is still seeking forgiveness for his sins even in death.”

A Guide in the Graveyard

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 45
Occupation: Engineer
Residence: San Francisco
Performance Date: 3/18/18
Primary Language: Chinese

Interviewer: You once mentioned that most of your family believes in ghosts — do you remember any of the specific ghost stories that your family told you?

Informant: My mother and my father along with my grandparents believed in ghosts. Let me tell you a story about my grandfather.

Interviewer: Yes, go on.

Informant: This was in the 1930s, in China, when cars were not common, and it was most common to travel by foot. He was travelling to another town by foot to do business and trade. At night, it was also common to stay at a stranger’s home and for strangers to host each other when travelers were passing by. He was attempting to find a place to stay for the night or just any sort of lodging.

Interviewer: Right. Was he able to find a place to stay?

Informant: Not quite. It was pitch black at night and he continued to walk as he was trying to look for lights as an indication of a city or even just people living in the area. Finally, he was able to see a dim light or some sort of glowing in the distance. He tried to chase and follow the light, but he realized that he seemed to be going in circles, which was confusing, since a light should lead in one direction. He followed the light the entire night. He knew he was in some sort of trouble, since as he continued to walk towards the light, the light was always in front of him and never got any closer, but he still was going in circles. He was afraid to go in any other direction that wasn’t towards the light, since there was no moon out, and he couldn’t see anything else but that light. Once it was bright enough out, he realized that he had been wandering in a graveyard all night. His footsteps were all over the place, following a distant light that led him in circles in the graveyard.

Interviewer: Did he perceive the light as a ghost?

Informant: He perceived it as a ghost, especially because of the location.

 

Analysis

The informant does not believe it is a ghost, although the original narrator who experienced the story believes it is a ghost. The informant does not believe in ghosts, contrary from how ghost belief is quite prevalent in Asian cultures. The informant believes it could have been some sort of gas burning; however, that still does not explain why the informant’s grandfather had been walking in circles in a graveyard — that aspect of it still is unexplained.

As seen from this story, the reliability of the narrator is often questioned, because the narrator (informant’s grandfather) must have been very tired from a long day of travel. This story also portrays how we often use ghosts as a way to explain the unexplainable. It’s quite interesting how the narrator never reached his destination of the light, and how it was always just in reach, but unobtainable. The nature of the ghost in the story is unclear — the ghost didn’t seem to harm the man in any way, yet simply confused the man or was just having fun or teasing the man in a way. The ghost was not vocal or very corporal, and had more of a quiet presence. The ghost was also more of an anonymous ghost; it wasn’t clear if the original narrator had any relationship with the ghost. The environment this story is set in is very common for ghost stories — nighttime, on a moonless night, and in a graveyard, where the realm of the dead and living may be much closer together.

My opinion on the ghost story is that if everything stated is accurate and true, then it is believable as a ghost story. It’s extremely odd that a “light” would lead someone in circles. Once again, as mentioned earlier, the reliability of the narrator is what needs to be considered quite a bit. The fact that the original narrator had wandered around in circles throughout the entire night also could point to a spirit possession side to the story — it could be possible that the spirit was controlling him internally to wander in circles in the graveyard, rather than the spirit leading him in the direction to wander aimlessly in circles.