Author Archives: Yingqin Wang

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.