Category Archives: Legends

Narratives about belief.

Grandma Visits

Nationality: Shanghainese
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California, United States
Performance Date: November 2th, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin

“I heard this story last week and it was my friends story. And she said that her grandparents, um, her grandma in particular, told her that if she ever passed away, she would let them know that… she would communicate with them through the lights in the house. and her grandma passed away like recently, like a couple months ago. And her parents told her, like, ‘remember, grandma told us that when she passes away and if she’s in somewhere safe, she’ll communicate with us by flickering the lights, on and off’. And the first time that happened, she was taking a bath, and the bathroom lights started flickering for no reason. The light bulbs were fine, everything’s fine, and the bathroom lights started flickering on and off. And first she was like… she was really really scared. But her mom told her that that’s the way that grandma’s trying to talk to you, trying to communicate with you. And it got so frequent, that the grandma would flicker the lights.. or ‘the spirit’, would flicker the lights on and off, while the parents were eating dinner or something, and they would be like ‘oh, you stop it!’ and, but it happens all the time. It’s happened multiple times, and its not the light issue. So they think that spirits are real and it’s the grandma. And that like, you can interact with human things even after you’ve passed away. It’s scary but I bet its comforting – to know that there is an afterlife and that their grandma still exists, and still loves them, and watches over them.”

 

 

Wendy Chuong described this story as “the most realistic ghost story” she has ever heard. She says her friend truly believes that her grandmother is trying to communicate with her and also that she is there to spend time with the family. When I asked Wendy why she thought her friend’s grandmother would choose an inconvenient time such as bath time to communicate with her granddaughter, she immediately said “because that was the only time she was alone, and she wanted to reach out to her.” In classic ghost stories, it is very uncommon for ghosts to a multitude of people, and this story follows that tradition in that the ghost in the situation wanted to reach out to a human on an individual basis.

Her friend’s entire family takes a lot of comfort in knowing that their grandmother is in a safe place and is able to come down and spend time with her family. In this case, the encounter with the ghost is very welcomed and is also a psychological way to cushion the death of a loved one. The idea that their grandmother is both still around and safe, even if it is through the flickering of lights, is infinitely better than the thought of their grandmother being in an ambiguous place, or simply stopping to exist after death. In some ways, stories of family members returning may be due to the expectance of their presence after so many years and to push them along the grieving process. The comfort of being watched over from the afterlife brings up the idea that when one becomes a ghost, they are seen to adopt a new supernatural library of knowledge that able to ultimately help or guide the family. Additionally, a new set of moral rules would be set in place – the family members would hesitate to act in ways their grandmother would particularly dislike. Moral actions would increase due to the perception of being watched.

Furthermore, I wonder if there is a reason behind why her grandmother would chose such a trivial act of flickering lights. Do ghosts have differing ways of showing affection, or other emotions? Ghost stories similar to this one incorporate the concept of the transcendence of emotions and memories in the afterlife. This idea, however, contrasts to that of the traditional concept of the ghost that comes to Earth because something in their life was not fulfilled. In this sense, the grandmother’s ghost returns to spend time with her family and show her love. I would describe this ghost story as very sweet, and that every encounter with flickering lights within that household immediately becomes a memorate for the story of the grandmother’s encounters within that family.

In with the Old, Out with the New

Nationality: Chinese-American
Age: 20
Occupation: full time student
Residence: university housing
Performance Date: 11-3-2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Catonese

In with the Old, Out with the New

I’ve lived in Riverside, CA for most of my life. However, I have a lot of family still in China. My father’s side of the family lives in Hefei in the Anhui region of China. My family is pretty traditional and was poor until the recent advancements in China’s economy. Hefei is now industrial, but when my dad was our age, the town was more of a village. The main family house is still located in the former rural area on a hill with the closest house a good distance away because it is not in the heart of the capital with a lot of people and newer homes. After my grandfather (head of the family) passed away in the summer of 2002, my uncle who was left the will of the house, decided to renovate the family home by adding two more floors below the house. The house already was two stories, but the uncle made arrangements for another floor for guests/ other family members and a game/leisure room at the very basement of the house. My dad was opposed to the change and told my uncle to just buy a new home rather than change the one they grew up in.

The renovations took 4-5 years and everything was good…or so everyone thought. My dad went back home every two years for the anniversary of grandfather’s death and he always comes back with crazy stories that I never really believed. Ever since the renovations, weird things happen in game/leisure room or the fourth floor of the house. Last time, my uncle brought a new arcade machine for the room, but randomly it would turn off and on or the controls would be going backward. The pool table has a big dark stain on it that suddenly appeared and does not wash out. Dad always joked that it was grandpa mad at uncle for changing things. However, uncle told me that the weird things stopped last winter when my dad passed away.

I found it interesting that common themes we discussed in class were demonstrated in a story that I happened to collect from a friend such as the emphasis on ancestral spirits in Asia cultures, the number 4, and the idea of disturbing the peace. In Asian cultures, the presence of ancestral ghosts is more common like China. Anhui is a recently developed industrial city; therefore, the old values and the new are at play in the modern society. Amy’s family home is located in a fairly older area of town in a rapidly developing capital; therefore, the Anhui province is in liminal state.  However, the classic idea of “let sleeping dogs lie” by not making changes that will upset anyone stands true (and on the fourth floor as well). Firstly, the number four is avoided as Western cultures avoid the number 13 because the direct translation is very similar to the English word “death.” It is still not proven that the weird occurrences were caused by the grandfather’s spirit, but how the Gong family considers that to be a valid reason demonstrates not only the beliefs of the Gong family, but can represent the beliefs of a larger people in China who believe in this “other world.” It serves as a justification that even today with all our technology and electronic toys, we have yet to discover an answer to this mystery. What I find more interesting is that it does not matter if we have the answer or not, but once we make a connection between a story and our personal lives, then the story becomes just as valid as any chemical process or theorem.

This is a personal story that Amy shared with me about something she encountered as a “ghostly” experience with her family. At first, she was telling me how this experience is not “technically” a ghost tale, but Amy is fairly superstitious and believed things were happening for a reason. Amy has never visited the room itself and the fact that she lives in California may have created a thought that this story was not too “close to home.” However, after her father’s passing, this story held a whole new meaning for her. The idea that the disturbances ended with her father’s passing or better yet the joining of father and son brought peace to the household serves as a comfort for the living such as Amy who still thinks of her father and holds him dear to her heart during this period of healing. Ghost stories serve a multitude of functions, but this specific form of storytelling has the effect of personalizing an event, unlike any historical fact or scientific explanation.

Information on Anhui, China:

http://www.chinachineseinfo.com/regions/anhui.htm

Orphan gets run over by train

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: 920 W. 37th Place Suite 3301C
Performance Date: 31 Oct. 11
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Orphan gets run over by a train

In Melbourne, there was this orphanage. I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but the orphanage burned a while back and was finally replaced by a school – like, a boarding school – not too long ago. Apparently, there are these umm…(positions arms perpendicular to each other)… railroad tracks nearby, and an orphan went over to the railroads and was run over by a train. The way the story goes you can see hand prints on the windows when the train passes by on foggy nights. It’s probably the first thing the train…you know…the first point of impact or something like that.

My roommate, E. F.,  heard the story from another friend, who was inspired to share after hearing a similar story on the local news, only a few nights ago. Right away, various elements of this story identify it as a legend. The setting, for one, is the capitol of Australia, a geographically distant but nonetheless real location. The events, for another, comprise the untimely death of an unnamed child and his/her haunting the location, which, although a known motif within ghost stories, present obvious challenges to belief as well as common thought – even for an individual who comes from an East Asian culture in which ghost stories are far more prevalent than here, in the US.

Despite the absence of any discernible proof and his usually pragmatic demeanor, E. F. didn’t altogether reject the possibility of the story’s events. He said he didn’t know any others but later mentioned that “at home [i.e., Hong Kong], parents usually tell their kids stories like this to prevent them from doing anything stupid.” As such, my being elder (even if only by a 3 years) likely removed the value of telling the story which could explain the unimpressed tone and lackadaisical gesture E. F. used.

Unfortunately, I find it difficult to form alternative analytical suppositions without more details. However, lack in this regard also limits potential outcomes. Elders clearly aren’t the only people who tell the story, and children aren’t necessarily the only ones who hear it. Therefore, elements are bound to vary based on circumstances of each telling. Furthermore, the abstract nature of an metaphorical approach to analysis is desirable.

Young miner’s return

Nationality: American
Age: 17
Occupation: Student
Residence: 920 W. 37th Place
Performance Date: 1 Nov. 2011
Primary Language: English

“Alright, I think it was before the Great Depression – in the late 20s or early 30s – when my grandma was a teenager. Back then, my family lived in a hotel because my great-grandfather was really rich. He just bought a hotel, and all his kids had their own rooms and stuff. He lost it all in the depression, of course, which is why I think this story may take place before that. Well, he owned these mines – or was it a mill? Um, either way, they would have like workers that worked down there. Some of them would stay in the hotel as permanent residents or whatever. It was my grandma and her sister’s job to take care of their [the workers’] laundry and stuff during the day after school, and, um, there was one miner that was working or, uh that was there with them. Actually, I’m not sure if he was a miner or a mill worker. I do know he was a worker for my great-grandfather, and he was younger than all the others – around like 18 or 19. All the girls were really into him, hanging all over him, paying him extra attention and whatnot. There was one day, while they were at work in the morning, where my grandma and her sister laid out an ironing board to iron the laundry like they usually did. Back then, ironing boards didn’t have the fancy stands to hold them up. You just took the ironing board and laid it across two chairs. Whenever they did that, it would always end up blocking the door, so they had it all set up and they had the ironing board down. Um, the bell hadn’t rung yet, saying that work was over, but the young guy had come home and opened the door like he was just coming home. Before moving on, he stood there and just looked at them, watching them iron his sheets. They had to like move everything [to let him pass]. He didn’t say anything, though. He just waited until they had moved all the chairs and the ironing board. They waited for him to pass, so they saw and heard him go up to his room and close his door before they put everything back and started working again. Three hours later, the bell rang, so all the workers came home, except for him. They [my grandma and her sister] assumed he was already there. But then, a messenger came from the mill or mines came over and told them that he had died in an accident that day and that they shouldn’t expect him to come back. They went up and checked his room, but he wasn’t there. It wasn’t as if they just thought they saw him passing by, either. He legit, like, waited for them to move everything, and, so, yea. That’s really it. I mean, like, with a story from this time period, I can see how or, at least, why he’d come back. There’s no, like, ‘rehaunting’ or anything, just that one encounter. It freaked them all out, though. It’s weird, too, because you always wonder – That’s the only one I think we have in my family, though. I don’t know.”

As illustrated by his version of this story, J. M., is a loquacious individual. He heard this recounted from his grandma, who lived with his grandpa near the Ohio River Valley, and retold it around midday – not midnight, unfortunately. Now 19 years of age, he openly admits to not believing this story as a child, a sentiment somewhat implied by the emphasis on the term rehaunting. Naturally, one might consider this a healthy degree of skepticism. Viewed as psychic premonitions, dreams of this sort are not uncommon among women in J. M.’s family, however. Both his mom and grandma have them. Although he does not elaborate on his initial statement of regarding his beliefs as a child, J. M. believes, now, “after hearing grandma tell older relatives the same story…”

Given its physical setting and believable events, I believe this story clearly falls under the legend category. J. M. did not appear overly concerned with the accuracy of his date, but I do not feel as if this had a negative impact on the story. The distinguishable imbalance of all other details placed throughout the story clearly identifies the young man’s return from the dead as the focal issue in this legend. Although, or perhaps because, I have come to to recognize J. M. as an excellent storyteller, I was somewhat worried that J. M. might add or overemphasize particular elements the story in order to make it sound more believable.

Fortunately, a story that emphasizes specific details and/or conditions, especially those surrounding a visitation, agrees most with author/editor Gillian Bennet’s typography of ghostly narratives, set forth in her collection of memorates and analyses entitled Alas, Poor Ghost!, as a story of cause. A narrator who tells a story of this type generally highlights contextual evidence that furthers a sense of order and purpose (1999). Seemingly at odds with this definition, the key data J. M. includes – namely, the current year and the worker’s age – is relatively inexact; likewise (un)defined are his occupation in life and reason for resurrecting in death. However, the first two of these inconsistencies are, at best, debatable.

In a temporal sense, the Great Depression, effectively the nadir of modern American history, replaces any value or clarity lost in his estimation of the “…the late 20s or early 30s…” Issues with details specific to the worker falter accordingly. His occupation as a miller or miner is unclear, but that stems from the state of the workplace, which is never definitively identified as either a mill or a minor discrepancy considering the relevant context. At “around…18 or 19” years of age, the young worker’s death occurs unquestionably early and, in accordance with the popular motif, is equally untimely. Furthermore, the majority of these “uncertain” elements relate to the young worker. The girls usually pay the young worker extra attention. J. M.’s grandma and her sister typically do the laundry and set up the iron-chair contraption. The young worker is essentially the only uncertain person, and guess who ends ends up being the ghost.

Grandmother In Katy, TX

Nationality: Asian American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 11/10/2011
Primary Language: English

Dante Caravaggio, 21

Caucasian

Los Angeles, CA

11/10/2011

One of my roommates and close friend Dante Caravaggio, often spoke about these spooky occurrences that him and his family as a teenager. I decided to sit Dante down and hear the whole story. We were casually eating dinner and after I was done, he started his story:

“…So after living in um Katy, Texas, which is near Houston, my parents wanted a break from the city life. So we rented a ten acre ranch that had horses and uh a guest house among an indoor swimming pool, it was one of the greatest houses I’ve ever seen. The most fun house ever, three stories with an indoor swimming pool and a two story guest house. My sister, each of us had our own room, and she stayed in the basement and she was the first to hear noises that we couldn’t explain. We used to blame these noises on our cat, but she said that she was hearing the bathroom door opening and closing. Obviously the cat couldn’t open or close a door so we told her the door was creaking since the house is over forty years old. And um, her room was kind of an eerie room because the entire floor was a walk out room and her room was entirely surrounded by glass instead of the regular drywall. So she just said she saw shadows which she hoped to be the cat and the occasional sounds she would hear would be the bathroom door opening and closing. So that was the first thing. I used to hear footsteps up and down the stairs like a lot during the night. And uh you know like your mom would come check on you at night while you were in bed, so for years my mother would come into our bedrooms and check on us when we were like 13, so like we would hear, like I would hear, and I’d ask my brother if mom checked on him, and he said no. We were the only two on that level of the house, so there was a very distinct sound of footsteps going up and down on the stairs and we would hear it every night and we had suspected my mother to check on us, but it didn’t make sense at the hours of the night these events had happened.  So that was the second clue. My mother who had never felt comfortable in the house in the first place and was the biggest skeptic so there’s no way she could have made this up, she was sweeping leaves off of the basketball court and she swears that she saw an older woman wearing an apron standing in the kitchen. She was wearing a red apron, and was a little larger in size. She ran inside to see if the woman was actually there and of course there wasn’t anything there. I also hated showering because I felt like someone was watching me and I remember one time I was using my parents shower because it was way better than mine and it was a super sick shower of course. I was showering and I’m shampooing my hair and I looked through the stained glass and hand on the holy bible and I swear someone walked by. At first I thought it was my dad, but I soon realized that my parents weren’t home and like my brother and sister are in school. I was trying to explain to myself what was going on, but nothing else but a ghost made sense. We asked the former homeowners about the house, and they explained that their grandmother had a heart attack in the kitchen and the ambulance couldn’t make it in time. “

Dante and his family had lived in this house in Katy, Texas for about a year, starting from summer 2003 to summer 2004. After Dante told me the accounts that he and his family had encountered, he later called his mother that night to ask for more details of the unexplained events. His mother had spoken to the former house owners that had lived in this house before the Caravaggio family. According to Dante, the house and ranch was over forty years old, and had been passed down from generation to generation starting from the original family that had built the house. The previous house owners informed the Caravaggios that their grandmother, who was about 80 years old, was cooking in the kitchen one day, minding her own business, and then suddenly she had collapsed in the kitchen. The woman had died before the ambulance could make it to the house. The apparition of the larger woman in a red apron standing in the kitchen that Dante’s mother had seen is more than likely to be the same grandmother that had previously lived in the house. However, the door opening and closing, creaking of the stairs, shadows, and the shower event remain unexplained. We can infer that the house is home to at least the ghost of the grandmother. If the grandmother is the only spirit in the house, we see a common theme of motherhood that is portrayed in ghost stories. The occurrences of Dante’s room to his door opening and closing, the creaking of the stairs, and the shadows that his sister had seen, may be the ghost of the grandmother performing her daily duties in the household, which would usually comprise chores like checking on the children and cooking in the kitchen. The ghost of the house does not seem to be hostile, but seems to be more nurturing and taking upon a caretaker role, just like the grandmother was when she was alive. In conclusion, I believe that the ghost of the grandmother had bounded itself to the house, forever taking care of her house and family.

Yen Hoang, 20

Student

University of Southern California

Los Angeles, CA