Tag Archives: ghost

Do not respond to voices

Nationality: American
Age: 25
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 13th, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin

Informant Background: The informant was born in rural parts of China called Hainan. She lived there with her grandparents where she attended elementary school. She moved to the United States when she was thirteen. She speaks both Chinese and English. She lives in Los Angeles with her mother but travels back to visit her relatives in Beijing and Hainan every year. She and her mother still practice a lot of Chinese traditions and celebrate Chinese holidays through special meals.

 

In the countryside of China the bathroom is not part of the house. It is small hut or room separate from the house. Sometimes people have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night through a dark area surrounded by trees. And…Sometimes you will hear noises from wind and trees. My grandparents told me that if you hear a voice calling you, or calling your name, you should ignore it. You are not supposed to look or respond to the voice even though the voice might sound like your parents or somebody you know. If you answer, the ghost that created the voice will take you away and you will disappear.

The informant said this story was told to her by her grandparents every time she visits them in the countryside. When somebody said they need to use the bathroom, her grandparents will say “if you hear a voice, don’t answer.”This is a warning for people of all ages to be careful of strange and familiar voices at night time because these voices can be ghosts and spirits calling your name. To respond to those voices is the same as responding and acknowledging the spirits. Acknowledging the spirit makes you a target.

 

I heard of a similar folk belief from my friend where you cannot respond to unfamiliar sounds especially at night time because it means that you can hear the spirits. If you can hear it then that means they can come and take you away. If you ignore and pretend you do not to hear it then you are safe. This folk-belief shows the fear of night and darkness which occurs in many culture. In this case it is the fear of the unknown and the unseen.

This warning also shows the danger in acknowledging something from the other realm that by acknowledging the voice makes you a target. It reminds me of the Sirens from Greek mythology how sound is used as a target luring device.

It is similar to other ghost story how ghosts and spirits emulate living things to lure in their target. This belief is a warning to be careful of the surrounding when you are alone at night time even though it still in the area of your own house.

I think it could also be that those voices are a murderer who calls out and the disappearance and death is done by a person rather than spirit.  This legend could be another form of disappearance crime done by humans rather than spirits.But then again as a legend the truth value fluctuates. Similar to most legends this story/warning challenges the concept of believe. It also shows that belief is very contextual. Even when the informant was telling me this story, both she and I were a little scared because our surrounding was very quiet. In this case, the truth value of the legend does not need to be proven for the story to have an effect.

Hauntings at Elsinore Theater

Nationality: American
Age: 16
Occupation: Student
Residence: Salem, Oregon
Performance Date: March 20, 2013
Primary Language: English

“There’s a story about the Elsinore Theater in Salem. It’s supposedly supposed to be haunted. I’ve heard that they’re actors and actresses that use to perform on the stage in the past that died, and now they’ve come back to haunt the theater and to watch those who use the stage now. My friend said she read somewhere that the original owner’s daughter died in Elsinore and that she also haunts the theater. There’s supposed to be some place on the stage that’s a cold spot. If you’re on that place while performing, you’ll suddenly feel the temperature drop, and you might see a weird figure watching you. Also, there have been reports of people in the scaffolding area, and also of a dark figure visible from the stage, walking around the aisles during performances.”

This information was told to my informant during a choir benefit concert. She was there with her orchestra to play Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” with the choir. As she was in the waiting room before her performance time, she was talking with some of her choir friends, and they passed on these stories of the theater. She said it was definitely a bit creepy for her, as it was late in the evening in winter, so there was a lot of howling wind and dreary rain. She refused to go to the bathroom by herself, after hearing these accounts, as she was afraid she would encounter one of these ghostly apparitions. Although she does not really believe these accounts to be true, she said something about the theater just seems eerie to her now.

I have been to the Elsinore Theater myself, although I have never heard about these possible hauntings. It is an old and beautiful theater, and I could see how rumors like these could have arisen. For me, places where art is made such as music and plays, these places seem a bit romantically scary. It is almost as though past performers or composers, or the subjects of the plays or music seem to linger around in these areas of high emotion and passion. Elsinore Theater seems to be one of those places where even fairytales can come true.

Scissor Lock

Nationality: Korean
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 22, 2013
Primary Language: English

“I’ve personally, firsthand experienced scissor lock. You know, sleep paralysis. I’ve experienced scissor lock multiple times, but this one is the most frightening and eerie. The whole day was just super eerie. It was one day when I was feeling sick and tired after school. My parents were at work and my sister was off at soccer practice. I decided to lay in my bed to try in sleep. Well, I was starting to drift off to sleep when I heard somebody downstairs, walking back and forth and opening drawers and cupboards. I thought my mom had come back from work early, so I just went laid back down. I got thirsty though, so I went out of my room and yelled downstairs, asking my mom for a cup of water. There was no response. So I went downstairs, but no one was there. Feeling weird, I called my parents and my sister. They all said they had not come home today, and told me I was probably dreaming. But I swear, I wasn’t dreaming, I heard someone. Feeling extremely weird, I decided to just shake it off and go back to bed. That’s when I experienced scissor lock. I experienced it three times in a row, it was the scariest thing ever. What happened was, I went to sleep. Then, I’m not sure if my eyes were even open, or if this was happening in my brain, but I was awake, but I couldn’t move at all. Inside, I was screaming out to my body to move, but I was just stuck, like I was under some binding spell. As this was happening, I saw the dark figure of a lady standing by my bedroom door and staring at me. I freaked out and somehow broke from the paralysis. I was thoroughly scared, but so tired that I just went back to sleep. It happened another time. This time, I could almost feel myself sleeping into scissor lock, even when I felt like I was screaming out to stop. Once again, I was frozen, even though I wanted to yell and flail my arms around. This time I saw the lady again, and she was closer to me, like right next to my bed. She was staring down at me. The worst thing is that I couldn’t even move to escape from her. Eventually after struggling I slightly woke up, groggily. Once again though, I fell back asleep again, almost immediately. This is the last time I had the scissor lock. This time the lady was sitting on me and staring down at me. I was so freaked out after waking up that I turned on all the lights and blasted Christian music.”

As my informant told me this account of his sleep paralysis, he became so scared again that he refused to go home. He said his sister and his other friends had also experienced this scissor lock before, which is the Korean version of sleep paralysis. This experience made him believe in the supernatural. He believes there is some kind of evil out there, whether it is ghosts or spirits or demons he does not know, but there is something. I have heard that sleep paralysis is called something different in each culture, and is scissor lock for Korean. I am not sure why exactly it is called this, although if translated directly from the Korean word for it, it has something to do with being pushed down. This goes along with the idea that sleep paralysis occurs when a ghost or spirit is lying on top of the victim, causing paralysis, which is what my informant saw the third time he experienced the paralysis. I have heard of different accounts of this phenomenon and different explanations for it, including religious ones that it is a demon trying to make scare or lure someone who is spiritually well. I just hope I never have to experience this, as it seems quite frightening.

Killer Upstairs

Nationality: African American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 28
Primary Language: English
Language: Basic Spanish

So when I was younger all the kids in the elementary school were scared of going upstairs. You know the parents say go upstairs to my room and get x object. And you’re all downstairs, the lights are all off upstairs, so you always run up the stairs to get, to get the stuff and run back down, because there was a story going round that a guy went up to his parent’s room to get a, uh, a remote, a TV remote or something like that, and he got killed by a killer who only goes up there when the kids are told to go up there by their parents. So all the kids were afraid, and um, I was literally terrified, because I knew for a fact . . . there is a guy in there! There wasn’t though.

This story is an urban legend spread by elementary school children. It was told to initiate children, as older children in-the-know could tell younger children this to scare them, without believing it themselves. It was also told by children who might have believed, as many children are afraid of the darker and being alone, even in their own house. Going upstairs to a parent’s room in the dark to retrieve something can be a terrifying experience. This story helps rationalize why one should feel afraid to go upstairs alone as a child.

Bloody Mary

Nationality: Latino American
Age: 32
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 16, 2013
Primary Language: English

Euclid Avenue Elementary School has one of the oldest buildings in the LAUSD. In the basement of the C building was the bathroom, restricted to all students. The ultimate dare in the 3rd grade. Who has the guts to stay in a dark restricted bathroom? To resurrect the ghost of a little dead girl? The rules: make sure the lights are all off and splash water in the mirror, then say the words 5 times: Blood Mary. If done right, she would appear in to the mirror and take judgment on you. If you sinned, she takes your soul, if you’re pure, she would leave you be.

The tale first brewed and echoed the hallways in the 2nd grade. The 6th graders dare the 5th, the 5th to the 4th, and the 4th to the 3rd graders. It was a right of passenge here at Euclid elementary, the day came when it was our turn to conjure up spirits and play necromancer.

As the performer of this piece of folklore said, this is a right of passage. The story of the ghost of Bloody Mary is a way to test and prove one’s courage to one’s older peers. This is an interesting variation of the challenge, as one repeats the name 5 times, rather than the more popular rule of 3 in most American folklore. Furthermore, water is splashed on the mirror, and the ghost seems to be tied to this particular bathroom. These variations seem to have made the rite of passage more accessible to male children, as Javier was aware of, and observed the practice of this elementary school tradition.