Tag Archives: ghost

The Bay Area: The Toys R Us Ghost

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 2/21/2019
Primary Language: English

Context:

My informant is a 21 year old student from the University of Southern California. This conversation took place in a university dining hall one evening. The informant and I were in an open space, and the informant’s significant other was present and listening to the conversation, as well. The SO’s presence, is the most likely reason that the informant was much more dramatic and told the legend quite jokingly, as if for the purpose to get laughs out of both me and the SO. In this account, he explains a legend of a ghost in his town that he doesn’t remember who he learned it from: “Everyone just seems to know about it.” This is a local legend, and has also been reported on Mercury News, SFGate, and a series of blogs. This is a transcription of our conversation, where he is identified as A and I am identified as K.

 

Text:

A: Before the bustling suburb of Sunnyvale grew to its imminent heights that now houses Amazon and Google offices, it was once a sleepy little farm town in Silicon Valley, where tech was replaced by fields and farms and orchards. One day, this man (as it was explained to me) was out in the field, in one of those like, you know, he has some kind of labor agreement with the farm… So he’s hacking away with his hoe, and this guy injures himself. Turns out he bleeds out into the field and dies. Decades later, there’s now a Toys R Us here… long story short, this guy who self-maimed himself with a hoe and bled out… he hunts, this uh, Toys R Us. Even though Toys R Us just got bought out, before that, all the ghost hunter people would come into Sunnyville to see this ghost. He would come into the aisles at all hours of the night, pretty crazy stuff… You can say Sunnyvale’s not sleepy anymore!

Don’t sleep on Sunnyvale….

K: Ok, what did you take away from this story?

A: Um, I think especially in areas like suburbs, when there’s not traditionally a lot of culture, people latch on to certain stories, just to impart some kind of history onto a town that otherwise wouldn’t necessarily be that notable.

K: What effect did this story have on you?

A: I still shopped at Toys R Us, but honestly I heard it after I stopped shopping, but I still do play with Legos just as a disclaimer.

 

Thoughts:

I thought this story was particularly interesting and ended up looking it up to find out more about this ghost. As it turns out, this ghost has made quite a name for itself in the Bay Area. Just like my informant said, this ghost worked the land as part of a labor agreement, where he would have housing in exchange for his work. However, what my informant didn’t mention was the fact that this ghost fell in love with the daughter of the family that owned the land; she eventually ran away with a lawyer, breaking his heart. Distracted by the pain of his broken heart, the ghost ended up hurting himself with one of his tools and slowly bled to death, thus leaving his unsettled ghost to roam the land.

Years afterwards, many people came to the newly built Toys R Us that was constructed on top of the land that he worked to ghost hunt for him., but it seems that this story has re-emerged under the new context that Toys R Us is now shutting down. It seems that this story has a new relevance, where people can now interpret this story in the death of people, but also in the death of companies. Many of the new articles wonder whether or not the death of Toys R Us will also result in the disappearance of the ghost. However, the ghost’s story is separate from Toys R Us’s: he was clearly wronged by a member of the family that owned the land, and his haunting is meant to instill guilt in the owners of that land. Furthermore, ghosts are believed to be tied to the soil, not the structure that they resided in, so it’s most likely that the ghost will remain and that for those that were hopeful that he would leave, they will have to continue to remember the wrongdoings of the daughter that broke his heart.

 

For more on this ghost story, please refer to this article below:

Dowd, Katie. “Will the Death of Toys R Us Kill off This Famous South Bay Ghost Story?” SFGate, San Francisco Chronicle, 17 May 2018, www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/haunted-toys-r-us-sunnyvale-ghost-store-12750779.php.


Winchester Mystery House

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 20
Primary Language: English

Context:  The informant began to speak of odd places near her hometown and had this place as an example.

Piece: “So I am from San Jose California and there is a really famous house in San Jose called the Winchester Mystery house. And it’s supposedly by Sarah Winchester, who was married to William Winchester, I believe, and um she moved there after he died, I think. But he passed away and he was the manufacturer of this really famous rifle called like the Winchester rifle. So Sarah, after she died like thought she was haunted by the ghosts of the people who were killed with his guns, yeah which is a lot of people. So she built this house, and she just kept expanding it because she was trying to protect herself from the ghosts. So you go to this house and the architecture makes absolutely no sense because she just kept building and building and building so its super vast and she could protect herself from the outside. There are like stairs that lead to nowhere and doors that lead to nowhere and cause like it doesn’t make sense and there is this motif of spiderwebs throughout it like there are windows that look like webs and so like it really looks like a haunted house. I have been there and they actually take a lot of kids on field trips there now, which is weird. And it’s well known and a lot of people go there.”

Background: The informant is a 19 year old USC student who grew up in San Jose, California. She is very well versed in the Winchester Mystery House and has personally been there.

Analysis: This home is a ghost tripping home, attracting people to quest to find or see ghosts. This site in particular has house tours and advertising, indicating that it is in the commercial industry and makes profit from the stories about the home. The motifs in the house further add to the spectacle that attracts visitors, as well as adding to the feel of the environment. It is also interesting how there is an eerie quality to the odd architecture– such as the stairs that lead nowhere. The transitional, liminal quality creates the uneasy energy that plays into the ghost stories associated with the site.

 

The Witch of Yazoo

Nationality: American
Age: 38
Occupation: Writer
Residence: LA
Performance Date: 4/21/19
Primary Language: English

(Setup)

Storyteller:

“On my dad’s side of the family…he grew up in a town called Yazoo City, Mississippi. And did you ever see a movie called My Dog Skip?”

Me: “No”

Storyteller: “Okay, so it’s a movie..based on a book about an author who grew up in the same town as my dad did. A white author who grew up there. And in the movie, they portray this legend which is the Witch of Yazoo. And supposedly, people are like ‘well he invented that for the book.’ On the black side of town…because it is Mississippi so there is still a very distinct black side of town. On the black side of town, the Witch of Yazoo was a preexisting legend. And again, whether it was a story he coopted or whatever, I don’t know. But I know that I heard about this form my aunt and uncle before I ever heard of this author or My Dog Skip or anything.”

(Here is the chunk of the story)

Storyteller: “And so, basically the story is that there was this woman and she was…and I’m going to try to remember it as accurately  as I can. I believe she was having… an affair with a man in town and it was either an affair…or some sort of family drama. I don’t remember specifically that part of it. But she ends up being murdered essentially by the man in her life in a fire. And then they bury her and everyone forgets about it. And then at a certain point fairly soon after…or it may have bene close to the anniversary of the death, half the town burnt down. And everyone was like wtf, like what happened. And her grave had been dug up.”

Me: “Oh My God!”

Storyteller: “And so people were like…’It was her! She came back and she did it’. And of course people were like ‘that’s crazy.’ But also people were like ‘um maybe?’ So they built a chain that goes around her grave that is supposed to keep her inside.”

Me: “Oh My God, that’s terrifying”

Storyteller: “And in the movie, if you see the movie My Dog Skip, it’s like a crypt that’s there…but in the black cemetery there was a grave because we went to see my grandmothers grave and I asked about it and my aunt was like ‘oh girl lemme tell you this story.’ So either there is one for the black side of town…because you know it used to be very segregated. Or it was a thing that happened on the black side of town originally and it just got coopted on the other side of town…I have NO idea. But it is this hilarious thing because it was this chain with GIANT weights and I was like ‘what the hell is that?!’ And yeah, so the inspect the chain…or at least they used to supposedly…they inspect it so she couldn’t come back.”

Me: “So this was true and it became a movie? Or what?”

Storyteller: “The thing is I have no idea…my aunt tells that story as if it is gospel truth right? But then when the movie came out and I looked it up, all this stuff online said it came from the book. But my aunt told me that story without ever having read that book. Because I asked her and she was like ‘what are you talking about?’ And she knew the guy (the author) but she had never read the book. So I don’t…I have no idea if it’s just one of those local stories that people know so he used it in the book or what…But it’s the south and it’s full of ridiculous scary stories. Really I think all these stories are made to just keep us from doing bad stuff or whatever.”

 

Background: The storyteller is form the south and her dad’s side of the family is from the city where this legend takes place. After listening to her other story that she shared with me, it is clear that her family has passed down many stories that are unique to the south. The storyteller is a professional writer and has used some of these stories and filled in the gaps to write short stories upon the narrative.

Context: I asked her if I could interview her for this project. I knew that she was from the south and after collecting a couple stories from people who grew up in the south, I was fascinated with them and wanted to hear more. She gave me three stories…a couple were stories from New Orleans and the other was this one. Both occurring in the south. I drove back home to meet her for some coffee before diving into the interview (along with another storyteller who is in a different post)

Thoughts:  I think that the stories that come from the south are fascinating. I don’t know what it is that draws me and so many other people to them. Perhaps it’s because the stories are incredibly rich or perhaps it’s the stories’ attention to details that make the stories so real. There are a lot of stories about revenge in the south and once again, I believe that this is the case because there is a lot of unsettled business. There have been a lot of wrong done in the south and the only way for people to cope with what happened may be to create stories that serve a small percentage of justice to those that were killed or unfairly harmed.

 

 

Blue Ghosts in Okinawa, Japan

Nationality: American
Age: college age freshman
Occupation: student
Residence: Los Angeles
Primary Language: English

AM: So, it was- like the first month or two when i moved to Japan and I was hanging outside at like…2am like at night in a park. Um, the military base we was staying on was built like near like Japanese Shrines and whatnot and they said that you know the shrines are haunted and there’s a lotta “superstitions” with those. So while we’re out hanging, there was like oh look- you can see a bluf- blue figure on a hill like on top of the shrine and when I looked over you- I saw like a bluish like glow from the hills where the shrine was and they said that this island is one of the most haunted places and that there’s a lot of spirits around.

VG: Woah. What island was it?

AM: Okinawa.

VG: Woah-

AM: And that is- it is very common to see those there… so we was like “yeah, let’s get the hell out of here.”

 

Background:

Location of Story – Okinawa, Japan

Location of Performance – Dormitory room, Los Angeles, CA, night

 

Context: This performance took place in a group setting – about 2-3 people – in a college dormitory room. This performance was prompted by the call for stories about beliefs, ghosts, or superstitions as examples of folklore. This story came after a few others. The one prior was specifically about a high school grade being cursed.

 

Analysis: One point of interest in this performance is the effectiveness of the subtlety of the description of the “spirits.” The only physical description the audience receives about these supernatural beings is that they humanoid in figure and blue. The color is particularly notable because, at least in my experience, I have always viewed the ghosts in ghost stories as being neutral toned or white. Therefore, this description was able to create a whole new image for me and draw me deeper into this performance. It also reinforces the foreignness AM might feel since he had just moved to Japan: not only is the location different but also all of the local lore. One might even go so far as to say that this story was presented with a negative conation despite having no description of graphic hauntings or threats. 

Game for Summoning Ghosts

Nationality: China
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Performance Date: Apr. 24
Primary Language: Chinese

Context
The informant is currently a Chinese college student. She heard this piece when she was in Junior High School. We were talking about ghost stories when she brought out this piece.

Content
Informant: You need to find a rectangular room. 4 people each stand in 4 corners. A person starts to walk along the wall. S/he touches the next person, who starts to walk. This person touches the next person who then starts to walk. And there are 4 people who had played the game for the whole night until they realized that when the fourth people walked towards the first people, s/he should’ve not touched the first person, so there was 1 extra person.

Interviewers: Wait, why the fourth person should not touch the first person when s/he walks back?

Informant: Because the first person is not yet back. He stayed where he touched the second person.

Interviewer: Oh f**k. What’s next?

Informant: The story just ends.

Interviewer: I felt a chill just ran down my spine.

Informant: I just remembered that this is a ghost-summoning game. You basically follow the rule to see if you can resume it.

Interviewer: OMG. Are there any requirements like turning off all the lights?

Informant: Yes. Make sure that no one can see the person in front of him/her.

Interviewer: By the way, what do you mean by ghost-summoning?

Informant: Basically, if you can keep on with the game, then there is a real ghost coming out.

Analysis
The informant told me that this had been her childhood shadow.
This story is most frightening if the audience imagines the occasion carefully. Many people would get stuck, not understanding why the first people should not be touched by the fourth people. But the scenario is fully understood with a little effort, the story turned out very scary. The story doesn’t describe many details, which invites the audience to draw their most frightening imaginations on what is the ghost and what would happen to the 4 people trapped in the game.