Text:
“Well, there’s this one that I do know. I don’t know the details but there’s this one well inside the palace museum in Beijing. So there’s this well that makes strange noises at night or something and people say it’s because there was this one princess, or–I don’t think it was a princess–I think it was a servant for the nobles and what happened was she was mistreated and she was very young and she just decided to kill herself in the well, and that became her spirit there, and people say they can see her ghost wandering around the well late at night.”
Context:
Informant (XY) is a student aged 19 from Changsha, China. He spent a few years going to elementary school in Canada but has spent almost his entire life in China. He currently goes to USC. This piece was collected during an interview over dinner in the dining hall. He learned about this from Chinese TikTok. To him, the story is an example of the evils of the past nobility.
Interpretation
This piece demonstrates how new stories are told as a result of modern media. TikTok has created a new medium for folklore to be communicated amongst people. It is also rather interesting to note that this story came to (XY) not from family or friends, but from strangers on the internet. The story also demonstrates anti-imperialist ideas amongst the Chinese people. It is even possible that the story’s circulation was positively impacted by its anti-imperialist nature. It’s a well-known fact that the Chinese government has a group of people creating fake pro-CCP posts on Chinese social media. Could this even be an example of a fake ghost story being circulated by such groups? That question is beyond the scope of this interview.
Tag Archives: ghosts
Ghosts of Interstate 295
Content:
D: I didn’t really hear about it growing up because 295 wasn’t built until I was in high school.
And the sightings of the ghosts and stuff really started happening after, you know, I moved away, but then, you know, I started hearing about ’em when I was going home and you know, then they started showing up in newspaper articles and stuff like that. But you can, you can research that, you know, online.
Me: Where did you hear about the ghosts?
D: I think family. Yeah. I mean, people that lived in the area. This would be more like they might know somebody that saw a sighting or, you know, or saw it in the paper or, um, you know, saw the police down there and stuff like that. I think my dad, you know, knew about sometimes when the police were called to the area and stuff. Um, because they would see these Indians on horseback and, you know, people would, would call and report just like, “Hey, some kids are out here, you know, playing around on horses, you know, by this highway and they don’t need to be down here, you know?” And then, um, but other sightings of ’em, they were clearly Indians, but 295 was built over an Indian burial ground and they discovered it when they were building the highway and they managed to get the approval to just keep going anyway and finished it out. And so it disturbed a lot of graves and a lot of activity was kicked after that, but they claim that people can hear the chanting and stuff like that too.
Me: Chanting in the same area?
D: Oh yeah. I mean the same, the same apparitions. They hear the chanting and they follow the chanting and then they see apparitions of these, you know, Indians on horseback and stuff.
And there’s, and there’s multiple sightings. It’s not just one or two people that have seen it or one incident that happened. I mean, it’s happened over and over and over.
Background: D was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1963. She moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 1981. Virginia’s Interstate 295 was completed in 1987.
Context: This story was told to me over a phone call.
Analysis: In my conversations, I found that stories of ghosts traveling along highways and interstates is relatively common in the United States, particularly in the southern states. However, most of that lore revolves around one major story that someone experienced, and the following stories of others. This one, however, doesn’t seem to have a central or first experience. Like D said, everyone knew someone that had seen the ghosts of Interstate 295, but no one knew who saw them first.
See also: D directed me to the following link, which she felt accurately illustrated her memory of the lore: Posted by blogger in RVA Ghosts. (2021, November 8). The Haunting of the Pocahontas Parkway. The Haunting of the Pocahontas Parkway – RVA Ghosts. Retrieved April 22, 2022, from https://rvaghosts.com/the-haunting-of-the-pocahontas-parkway/
The Woman in the Kitchen
Background: The informant recalls an experience in an old home of hers in San Jose, CA, in 2016.
JO: Well, I’ve told you before about the possible haunting of my old house when I still lived there.
Me: Right. Is there anything specific you can share that you recall from this time?
JO: At the time we still lived there, our neighbor had told us about how a previous resident passed away in the house. From time to time, the kitchen door leading to the garage would randomly open. Everybody would be upstairs, all of us in our own rooms and we’d hear the door downstairs open. My mom’s boyfriend went down to check it out but he saw nobody down there. While residing in the house, I overheard a conversation between my mom and her boyfriend about how my mom saw an elderly woman in the kitchen.
JO: She said she didn’t know this woman, and this woman was not solid. Like, this elderly woman was nearly transparent.
Me: That’s so creepy.
JO: I know. But my mom told her boyfriend to not say anything about it to us [JO and her siblings]. I think she just didn’t want us to be scared of our own home. We’ve moved out since then, thankfully. I’m still convinced that house was haunted and nothing will change my mind.
Context of performance: Recorded over a facetime call.
Thoughts: I think this experience is interesting because I still remember when the informant was telling me of these experiences, as it was happening when she lived there. Having been to the house once before, I can offer the memory that I remember feeling a bit unsettled upon setting foot in the home due to a weird energy.
Hide and Seek
Background: The informant recalls a personal experience that occurred in 2002 in Manila, Philippines, months after her son had passed.
Me: I remember a few years ago, when you told me this story you had with BC and I don’t really remember all the details aside from the fact it had involved you two somehow, and maybe it was a foot? I would greatly appreciate if you were able to retell this as you remember it happening.
AC: Of course. So, um, my first-born son, BC, was very much a mama’s boy. He loved playing hide-and-go seek in the small spaced we lived in. It was his favorite game considering how, you know, here in the Philippines, especially at the time, television and video games were not a very affordable or common option for children’s entertainment. Anyway, of course, I’d always play hide-and-go seek whenever BTA would ask.
Me: That’s so cute, I love that.
AC: Yeah haha, so did I. Um, so one of the most memorable times we were playing the game, I could not find him hiding while I was seeking. I ended up sitting in the bed when I felt a tiny hand squeeze my foot. I threw the sheets off the bed as it was so unexpected just to find BC laying at the foot of the bed, erupting in giggles. This was when he was four years old.
AC: He then passed away in December, uh, 2001 at the age of five, from a heart condition and that was the most difficult time in my life. Months after that I just remember this one particular night when I was unable to sleep due to being so overwhelmed and continuously overthinking. I kept tossing and turning around in bed when I suddenly felt the warmth and the presence of a tiny hand squeezing my foot. After that, I instantly felt comforted and at ease to finally sleep because I knew in my heart it was him. And to this day, I still believe it was BC’s spirit with me that night.
Context of performance: This experience was shared over a recorded phone call.
Thoughts: This informant shared a personal, intimate, and comforting experience with the spirit of a loved one. Just based off this short moment from years ago, I’d also confidently agree that it was BC with AC that night trying to comfort his mother.
Ghosts Can’t Cross Running Water
Background: The informant has lived in Durham, North Carolina his whole life. His whole extended family has also lived in North Carolina their entire lives.
TR: This is uh, this is kind of like a superstition that I remember, um, and it had to do with porches, remember and this is from a long time ago, but, so the superstition is that um, ghosts, ghosts can’t cross running water. Don’t ask me why ghosts can’t cross running water, I don’t know. Um, it doesn’t, um, you know, unless, unless it has to do with the fact that you know, once you’re across the river Styx, you can’t get back across without the boatman, so if you’re a ghost on that side you can’t get back, I don’t know. Anyway, that’s the superstition, and so, you know, because, maybe not so much now, but a lot of porches were painted blue for that reason. The whole thing was like blue is the color of water so that would protect your house from ghosts. Um, so that’s, you know, and I think it’s persisted a little bit like maybe there’s still like actual entryways like foyers in houses that maybe are painted blue and that could just be an unconscious, unknowing continuation of this practice, but, that’s something that’s like a very old like oooo ghosts can’t cross water, so um, porches would be painted blue for that reason.
Me: Do you remember who and when you first heard this from? Do you know if it’s a regional thing?
TR: Uh, it’s probably regional. Um, I remember it from my dad’s side of the family. This would be my great uncles and aunts, um we would go out to my great uncle’s farm and so we went out there quite a bit and he had this really old house, I mean old house, which, of course, when we told ghost stories about the house, so it was all, ghosts were just a popular thing. So that’s probably where, if I had to say I mean, I don’t have a memory of like oh this is you know, that’s when I first heard this story about ghosts can’t cross water.
Me: Have you ever thought about painting a deck blue? Like do you have any belief in it?
TR: Oh, no. absolutely not.
Context of the performance: This was told to me over a Zoom call.
Thoughts: This superstition about ghosts has been enacted into a practice. It relies on color meaning and symbolization for the connection to work. It works under the assumption that blue represents water and therefore the color is what is creating meaning, as the thing acting as a barrier between the ghosts and houses. The informants theory about the river Styx connects this superstition to myths to form a hypothesis about the meaning of the saying–the superstition–itself. This suggests that even though myths take place before, after, or outside the real world, people draw meaning from them and connect them to real life beliefs.