Chinese Urban Legends

Chinese Urban Legends and ghost stories to read online. In China, there is a tradition called Ghost Month, which is the seventh lunar month, when Chinese people believe ghosts are released from hell to wander the world for a month. Traditionally, during ghost month, Chinese people tell ghost stories.

Single Braid

There is a road that runs along the campus of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. They call it Single Braid Road and many students claim to have encountered a the ghostly figure of a girl with long braided hair, walking alone at night.

It is said that, one cold night, a girl with long braided hair took great pains to sneak into Hong Kong from the mainland. She was an illegal immigrant and she came with her boyfriend. The couple took a train into the city. Unexpectedly, the girl saw police boarding the train and checking passports and identification. Worried that they would catch her, she decided to jump off the moving train. As she jumped, her braid got caught in the window frame. The hair was ripped off her scalp and the skin was ripped off her face as well.

The girl stumbled onto Single Braid Road where she collapsed and died. The next day, the police found the girl’s dead body lying in a pool of blood. They cleaned up the mess and that seemed to be the end of it. Her boyfriend saw what happened, but he decided to continue on the train. When he reached his destination, he found a job and never looked for his girlfriend or tried to find out what happened to her.

However, one night, a male student was walking along Single Braid Road when he saw a girl standing there. She had her back to him and all he could see was the long braid down her back. When he called out to her, she didn’t answer. When the student came nearer, he tapped the girl on the shoulder. She turned around and the boy saw, to his horror, that she had no face… no eyes, no ears, no nose and no mouth… Then, she just disappeared into thin air. They say the girl’s ghost has appeared many times since then, but only male students can see her.

Bus 375

Bus 375 is a scary Chinese urban legend about a bus in Beijing that disappeared one cold November night and it is supposed to be based on a true story. This is also known as The Midnight Bus or The Bus to Fragrant Hills.

Lotus Pond

There was a young couple who were in love and they planned to run away together and get married. They arranged to meet at midnight beside the lotus pond. The girl showed up on time and waited for the boy to arrive. She waited and waited for such a long time, but her boyfriend never appeared. When the girl was going back to the dormitory, she suddenly spotted her boyfriend with another female classmate. The girl was so distraught that she began to cry and cry. She went back to the lotus pond and threw herself into the water. She committed suicide by drowning.

Some time after that, another young couple agreed to meet late at night at the lotus pond. The boy was early, so he waited at the water’s edge, pacing back and forth. Suddenly, he heard a female voice behind him say, “I asked you to meet me at midnight, didn’t I?” The boy answered, “No”. All of a sudden, two pale white hands emerged from the water and dragged him into the pond. He was drowned to death.

Ever since then, at Chung Chi, there is an unwritten rule: If you got to the lotus pond at midnight and you encounter a girl, do not answer her questions, do not even look at her, otherwise your life will be in danger.

Oxtail Soup

There was a young couple who attended United College. They were both are medical students. The dormitories in the college were in the same building but they were separated. The girls lived in the upper floors and the boys lived in the lower floors. They had to study in their rooms until very late at night, and they were only allowed to go to each others rooms during visiting hours, so the girl and the boy rarely got a chance to see each other. There were no mobile phones at the time, so it was hard to keep in contact.

Every night, the girl would make a cup of oxtail soup for her boyfriend. She would hang it out the window and lower it down to her boyfriend, whose room was directly below her. Every time her boyfriend drank this cup of soup, he got a warm feeling inside.

One night, the boy received the usual oxtail soup. He ate it all and then fell asleep with his books open in front of him. The next day, he went upstairs to visit his girlfriend, but she was nowhere to be found. He asked around and the other girls broke the sad news to him. His girlfriend had died of a sudden illness a few days before. Upon hearing this, the boy was overcome by grief. Then, he thought for a moment. If his girlfriend died, then who had been lowering the oxtail soup down to him?

Little Finger

There was a male student who often studied in the University Library. He would stay there studying in the evenings until it closed. Then he would walk back to his dorm room. Every night, on the way back to the dormitories, he passed a small park and he always saw a young girl sitting on a swing. Finally, one night he
decided to go up to her and started talking with her. From that time on, he would always talk to her for a while before going back to his dorm.

Later when he told his friends about the girl, they asked him to describe her. They told him that the young girl he described looked almost exactly the same as a teacher’s daughter who had died in a traffic accident. They said the teacher’s daughter had lost her little finger. The student was very curious and wanted to know whether the girl was missing her little finger. So, the next night, when he spoke to the girl he asked if he could see her hands. She didn’t want to show them to him, but he demanded to see her hands. The girl thrust out her hand and when the boy saw that her little finger was missing, he ran away in terror.

Later, he always went by the park in the evenings, but the swing was always empty and he never saw the girl again.

Room 111

There is a room in the basement of New Asia College dormitory called Room 111. Years ago, it was shared by an electronics engineering student and a medical student. Both students got along well together and studied hard all week long.

One night, the electronic engineering student was in the room alone. He was under a lot of pressure because of an important test that was coming up. He was afraid he was going to fail and he became so upset that he decided to commit suicide. He picked up some circuit boards, copper wire, batteries, welding tools and a clock. He made a suicide timing tool. He strapped the copper wire to himself and connected it to a powerful battery that was connected to the alarm clock. When the alarm went off, he was electrocuted as he lay in his bed.

The next morning, the medical student finally returned to the dormitory. When he went into the room, he saw his roommate laying motionless in the bed and thought he was sleeping. The medical student stayed in the room for days until he finally realized that he had been sharing the room with a dead body.

It is said that, although the medical student was later removed from the room, he was still very troubled by the incident and ultimately lost his mind. Suffering from mental illness, he was placed in a lunatic asylum for the rest of his life. The school authorities decided to rearrange all the room numbers, so that the students wouldn’t know which room was Room 111.

In another version of the story, Room 111 of Grace Tien Hall was the home of a brilliant science undergraduate who believed he had discovered how to transport himself through space and time. He wrapped himself in an elaborate wire contraption attached to an alarm clock and a powerful battery. When it rang, he believed it would send him hurtling into another dimension. The experiment went wrong and when the alarm rang the student died of a massive electric shock. His roommate returned to find him dead on his bed with a note beside him reading: “I will come back soon.”