BN: [When I] came across listening to Cha Hong, who was one of the very well-known priests in the Vietnamese community church. He has lots of different videos on YouTube people recorded and they put it up there. 

BN: So one time [when I] came across Cha Hong, sort of share that when he was in Vietnam, he witnessed himself, a person that is very, very young. Maybe a teenager, boy or something. That is acting like the grandparent like his own grandparent. 

Me: Wow. 

BN: So meaning…if [you], imagine if [you are] someone that knows the grandparent right? [You] ask this little boy [what year you were] born, everything they knew the answer. And this boy would even know something very, very special between the grandparent, and whoever that is in the room. So let’s say [you are] the grandfather’s son, right? 

BN: And then [when you were] very young, maybe he spanked the heck out of a [you] or something like that. Then this boy would even know that. So in short, Cha Hong also believes that there are spirits that could be…

Me: Haunting him?

BN: Yeah, will go into the person’s body and make the person act as that person. 

Me: Interesting. [Do you] believe that’s true?

BN: [I] also believe some of it, and then, in another time that [I] witnessed myself was in a marriage enrichment course. So every year there is an enrichment course…that we invite the couple, the husband and wife to go on a 3 day retreat, right? And then in [those] 3 days we do different things, we learn different things and [I] saw it twice. This couple. 

Me: The same couple twice?

BN: Yeah, the same couple twice. This couple, the wife when she is blending in with other people, she’s very normal. But during one time, in the course this is where, like, [you] suppose to look back and reflect upon you, your relationship with your spouse in relationship to God. Right, so it’s extremely extremely personal. And extremely spiritual. 

BN: And this time she would then [start] screaming gibberish words very scary things like nobody can understand what she was saying. But she was extremely loud, and [would] shake her body. 

BN: Like non-stop, and then somehow unbrokenly, she was able to say “Help me help me save [me], pray a Hail Mary, pray for me, Our Father pray for me. 50 of them,” like in broken spacing, out between the gibberish stuff, the scary stuff she was able to say that stuff 

Me: Sounds scary. 

BN: Yeah, it is then to the point where, after [I saw] like maybe 30 seconds to a minute of that, it was very exhaustive, so she kind of collapsed, she didn’t pass out. But she would collapse like on the floor. 

BN: Then, the priest in between there. Because we always have a priest in the room. So the priest was trying to do, like, you know, my Father and Son in the Holy Spirit and was doing some, maybe things that try to get the bad spirit out of her soul, whatever that is and would take a little bit, then she’ll snap back to normal. 

BN: But that only happens during the peak of the, you know, whatever we learned in class, not like normal conversation. So that’s why we believe that there’s some kind of bad spirit that goes and quáy phá, yeah. Anyway, that’s what [I] experienced. 

Me: [Do you] think, it’s the same spirit in both stories?

BN: Same mechanisms, same idea, but just depending on the circumstances. And the relative, or the person that’s affected by it. It’s different people, different means like on the little kid, it could be that the grandfather had to reappear to want to do something. But then in the case of that couple, the why, what the why went through is because the quáy phá, you know..what is it in English? 

Me: It’s like, causing disturbance. 

BN: Yeah, disturbing when she’s trying to get closer to God and trying to reconnect herself through realization and things like that. That’s when the bad stuff comes right during that time. 

Me: I see. 

BN: So, it’s different things with [the] same mechanism. 

More Details:

• Context: This story was told March 18 2026, around bedtime by my mom. She was aware of USC Folklore archives collecting this story and told it freely.
• Their thoughts: My mom thinks it’s a “religious” ghost or a demon causing these things. She largely leaves it unexplained, and isn’t 100% sure.
• My thoughts: I agree, maybe the devil is up to weird things with some people. I do agree with the religious point of view for the second one, although the first it’s hard to tell.