Category Archives: general

Lights in the Wood

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Home Depot Associate
Residence: Enumclaw, Washington
Performance Date: 11/3/2021
Primary Language: English

Background: It was me and my friends enjoying one last night with the homies. Around 2 AM in the morning, very muddy and rainy. CK was talking with his friends.

Me: When and where were you informed about this incident that occurred?

CK: I was in the woods with my friends when I noticed two eye like lights looking at our directions. I get rid of the fire as soon as possible, but when I turn back around the lights weren’t there but got closer. Remember it was raining a lot and the ground was muddy. The object bolted off to the creek which was right next to my camping spot and heard a huge splashing noise. So I wake up the next morning and go back to the place where I saw the eye like lights, but there weren’t any tracks or footprints. I was sooooo scared and terrified. I went to the creek and saw a very big boulder in it. A normal person or animal wouldn’t be able to move that size of a rock. I asked one of my friends of this incident and they told me it could have been a skin walker.

Me: Why do you remember it?

CK: I remember this because it was traumatizing. We threw rocks and stuff at it but it did not move. It made me not want to be here anymore. It was a first time experience in the woods and I was playing horror video games the week before the campout.

Me: Was it more believable at night?

CK: I believe the late night definitely gave a spooky vibe. It was a very dark night where we were staying up very late.

Context of performance: Discord call

Thoughts: The informant considers this ghost story to be widely experienced especially in his small city. The story the informant told was nothing too out of left field, but still instilled that emotion of fear and shock into me (the audience). I, too, have experienced a similar incident during my boy scout campout in the woods when I was younger. I guess when you are in the woods or forests late in the night, there tends to be weird, spooky activity that may be happening.

Do not be at school alone

Nationality: korean
Age: 46
Occupation: Accoutant
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 10/29/2021
Primary Language: Korean

Background: The informant was a young high schooler in Korea. She remembers a story about a janitor who passed away at the high school she attended.

Me: When and where were you informed about this incident that occurred?

JY: Well, I was a junior in high school when I was informed and made aware of an incident involving the school janitor. The janitor was working at night when he suddenly had a heart attack and died. Ever since that, there has been many cases of students seeing a janitor late at school. I thought this was a story to scare the students but no. I was at school finishing up work when I heard a noise outside the room. Thinking that I was just hearing things ignored it until the noise got and closer. I was so bothered by it that my friends and I went outside the room to see what was in the halls. I sawed the ghost of the janitor and ran to the front of the school.

Me: Why do you remember it?

JY: I remember this very clearly because I was very shocked that I saw a ghost because I didn’t believe in them. I especially remember this incident because it was the time when I recently found out that the previous janitor died at school.

Me: Was it more believable at night?

JY: Yes it was!

Me: What do you make of it?

JY: This was when I realized that my belief in ghosts was wrong. Ghosts are real. Don’t look at me like that. Ghosts are real! I was like you, someone who didn’t believe in ghosts; however, that is not the case anymore. I wish you were there to experience what I had.

Context of the performance: This was told to me over a Zoom call.

Thoughts: The informant considers this ghost story to be widely experienced especially in Korea. The story the informant told was nothing too out of left field, but still instilled that emotion of fear and shock into me (the audience). For some reason, the high school students, who reported similar cases to the one my informant told, tended to be more from the female population. This left me questioning if females experience more ghost stories and if so why.

Grandma’s Visitation

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Jiangsu, China
Performance Date: 10/24/21
Primary Language: Chinese
Language: English

Background: The informant is raised in a family that believes in Buddhism. Since the following paranormal event happened when the informant was only six, her mother helped to provide some of its detailed information, yet the informant claimed that she did hold bits of memory of the whole experience. She claimed that she remembered it so well because, for her, it was an emotional experience. 

CY: My grandma passed away when I was six, around May, the summer holiday before I went to primary school. She died in a car accident. That night, my parents invited some monks to our home to hold a ceremony, known as “Zuo Fa Shi” in Chinese. The first night passed peacefully, but the following evening, which was exactly one night before my grandma’s cremation, I started to run a fever, umm, at around 7 p.m. My mom got super worried, but the monks comforted her, saying that it was my grandma. She came to visit me. My temperature kept rising at midnight and my mom said that I was murmuring the whole time, though she could barely understand one word. The monks then told my mom to read a piece of sutras beside my bed, but she has forgotten about the content… I think it should be something that was meant to be said to my grandma. My mom was so terrified that she pulled up an all-nighter, and according to her, at around 2 a.m., I suddenly straightened my arms, pointing to the ceiling, and made a strange noise that sounded like an old woman screaming. After that, everything got settled down. I was no longer murmuring nor feverish. And that ends my whole story. 

Me: You said that your grandma went to visit you the night before cremation. Is there any significance about that evening? Why that night particularly? 

CY: Well, yeah, there is some sort of sayings about that in the ancient Chinese culture. So if spirits really exist, they are supposed to pass the Nai He Bridge and drink the Meng Po soup after the cremation. So, uh, that night was, was really her last chance to visit her family. And my mom said that my grandma came to visit me because she worried about me the most. 

Me: I see. Then do you know if your grandma went to visit others as well? Like your other relatives-? 

CY: Oh yes! May was pretty harsh on our family during that year, because my grandaunt also passed away in May. Because of oral cancer. I remember her calling all of us to the hospital one day and telling us that she thought that she was going to an end. She said that she had dreamed of my grandma that night, seeing my grandma smiling and waving to her. And about one or two days later, my grandaunt passed away. They said that my grandma was waiting for her in the dream, and they both went to heaven. 

Context: This piece was collected during a phone call. 

Thoughts: The informant’s experience is a detailed example of ghost visitation, which is quite interesting and moving at the same time since people in many cultures tend to believe that family members would come back and visit their beloved before going to the other side of the world. However, it is worth noticing that a lot of the details were narrated by the informant’s mother, so they might be exaggerated or imprecise. Her mother might be experiencing slight hallucinations due to the trauma of losing her own mom, and it is possible that her memory has faded after more than ten years. Yet a lot of the behaviors shown by the informant during her grandma’s visitation indeed can be considered “spooky”, such as the unexpected fever, and it makes me wonder if all these so-called ghost visitations would manifest themselves in terms of certain illnesses on the person being visited. Moreover, how would this visitation be different from the “visitation dream” experienced by the informant’s grandaunt? 

The House Ghost in Singapore

Nationality: Filipina American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Performance Date: April 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Tagalog

Background/Context:
The interlocutor, EF, is a close friend of the interviewer (INT). EF’s parents were staying in Singapore. They were sharing a house with another person during their time there.

Description (as told over email):
(EF): “okay story time: this takes place in singapore. my parents were washing dishes at around 2pm and they share a house w another person. that person wasnt home and was away in the philippines. their bedroom door was locked and no other person had access to tht room. when my parents were finishing up washing dishes. they noticed in the hall tht leads to their housemate’s room, that there was a white figure and they saw it walk through the door into the locked room

When my dad was playing around his house at night and he noticed that there was somebody sitting on his neighbor’s porch. When he approached the figure, there was a very dim light so he couldn’t see anything but a shadow or a silhouette… nothing too defining. The weird thing tho was tht the figure’s eyes were glowing orange-red but my dad didnt really think abt it at the time bc he thought it was normal. he went up to it to ask where his neighbor/playmate was. The figure didnt answer and nobody really knew what my dad was talking abt when he told other ppl

one night my mom was cooking and she heard the front door closed so she peeked to see who it was and she saw like a shadowy figure pass by and walk into their housemate’s bedroom so like she thought it was her housemate. when she turned around, the fire on the stove was like WAY higher than it was before and she had to turn it off right away. and then after a few mins, the front door closed again and when she looked it was the housemate she thought was already there. she asked him too like “didnt u just come in?” and he said no and tht he just came back.”

INTERLOCUTOR’S OPINION:
(INT): “do you think it was actually a ghost?”

(EF): “i mean, kinda, yeah??? idrk how else to describe something like that happening over and over again yknow? it’s just too weird lol like if that happened in my apartment i think i would definitely think it was a ghost plus my parents and their friends are all 100% it was a ghost so…

then again Filipinos can be pretty superstitious lol so u should also take that into consideration”

FINAL THOUGHTS:
I definitely find EF’s interpretation of this story interesting. I’m sure that something odd or seemingly unexplainable occurred in that house that made EF’S parents feel some unnatural presence. The roommate being in the Philippines also eliminates a possible explanation for these strange occurrences. Perhaps it was her parents’ superstitious nature that led them to believe these separate instances were indicators of the supernatural. Overall, I don’t doubt their story but I do think that other factors should be considered before downright saying it was a ghost.

Mooncake Lady: Chang’e

Nationality: Chinese American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Cantonese

CONTEXT:
The interlocutor (ZG) is a high school friend of the interviewer. She and her twin sister grew up in a Chinese-American household in Los Angeles.

DESCRIPTION: (told over call)
(ZG): “I don’t know if this is what you want but there’s this mooncake woman story my mom used to tell me and my sister of her and her husband! Did she tell you this already?…Mm, okay. 

So basically, there’s this Chinese moon goddess named Chang’e, right? And she’s supposed to be really pretty, with like, long black hair, y’know? Anyway, my mom told us about how Chang’e was this woman who was kinda in love with this human guy named Houyi. Houyi’s, like, an archer, by the way, and he’s supposed to be, like, the best archer. So basically it’s about this husband and wife? And the husband, Houyi, did something courageous and legendary and was given a potion of immortality for it, I guess? And then he gave it to his wife, Chang’e, to hang on to it while he went out to go hunting or fight somewhere, and she was alone in the house. But then this OTHER guy came to steal the potion from her. I think his name was like… Fengmeng? But I could be wrong. So like, instead of giving it to him, she drank it, which caused her to become immortal. And then because she was now immortal, she floated up to the moon and became the moon goddess.

So now there’s a Chinese celebration or festival that kind of honors her, I think? And mooncakes are also kind of in her honor too! The salted duck yolk, yum, being like a little yellow moon of course!”

INFORMANT’S OPINION:
(ZG): “My mom grew up in Hong Kong, which is where she learned this story from her parents and from celebrating the Moon Festival. She moved to the U.S. when she was, like, 10 or something, I don’t really know. I don’t really remember when she first told this story to [my sister] and I… we’ve kinda just known it forever, I guess.”

FINAL THOUGHTS:
As someone who grew up in two cultures with heavy folkloric traditions, I got the gist of what it’s like celebrating a tradition or a festival based off a myth. It’s really interesting to hear the different ways folklore can weave itself into a culture and pass itself down from generation to generation, withstanding elements such as migration to a different country or community as well as the test of time.