No one who has thus far followed my imperfect efforts to convey an idea of the popular beliefs of the Chinese will be surprised to find that ghosts and apparitions occupy an even greater place in their superstitious lore than is the case with ourselves. In the words of a native friend, “China is full of ghosts.” There is scarcely a popular play in which a ghost does not play a conspicuous part in aiding to right the wronged or to punish the guilty. The person to whom he appears on such occasions generally counterfeits either sleep or insensibility; but now and then while wakeful and active the actor (especially if he be the ruffian of the piece) is scared out of his senses by the apparition in the most approved melodramic style. Many popular stories turn also on the appearance of supposed ghosts, who turn out to be quite bonâ fide citizens in the flesh, and simply enforce the moral that conscience makes a coward of the wrongdoer. A story of this sort runs to the following effect, and narrates an incident stated by Mr. C. T. Gardner to have happened only some five years ago at Chinkeang. There were two partners, named Chang and Li, on one occasion returning by way of the canal from Yangchow, where they had been collecting debts. Chang saw Li standing on the edge of the boat, and the crime of pushing him into the water, and thus becoming sole possessor of the money, suggested itself. Chang, therefore, pushed Li into the canal. Next year, at the time the murder was committed, Chang fell very ill, and the ghost of Li appeared to him in a threatening form, and told him that unless he [72]paid over the sum properly belonging to the dead man’s family, he would die. Chang promised to do so, and got well, but his health being restored he broke his promise, and still kept the money. Again, the following year, at the same time, Li’s ghost again appeared, looking still angrier. Again Chang was induced to make the promise, and this time he kept it. However, his health seemed permanently to suffer, everything went wrong, business fell off, and he determined to try and change his luck by migrating to other parts; he consequently went to Honan. What was his astonishment when he again saw Li, not now in the middle of the night by the side of the bed where he lay sick, but in broad daylight, and in the street. His terror was extreme, he rushed forward, and made a ko-tow, and said, “I have already done as you ordered me, why do you still haunt me?” To which Li replied, “I am no ghost; what do you mean?” Then Chang told him how he had twice appeared, and how his share of the money had been paid to his family. Li then said, “So, it was not an accident my falling into the river? I had neglected to pay due respect to the spirit of my father, and when I tumbled in the river, and was nearly drowned, I thought it a punishment for my impiety.”

“The spirits of the dead,” remarks Mr. Chalmers, “were perhaps known at first only as objects of superstitious fear under the name Kwei 鬼, ghosts. The top of this character is supposed to represent a human skull. It had from the first an unpleasant association, and hence it is seldom used in speaking respectfully of the dead. In the poetry it occurs only twice, once as our modern Ghost, and once as the name of a place—Ghostland.

“An interesting statement is attributed to Confucius in the Book of Rites (§ Tan-kung) that in the time of the Hea, the earliest dynasty, they did not sacrifice to the dead, but simply made for them incomplete implements of bamboo, earthenware without polish, harps unstrung, organs untuned, and bells unhung, which they called ‘bright implements’ implying that the dead are spirits (shen) and bright. There is something really beautiful in this; and the substitution of ‘bright spirits’ or ‘spiritual intelligences’ for ‘ghosts’ is an euphemism of which we feel the necessity as much as the Chinese; for who likes to speak of his relations as gone to the shades and to the fellowship of ghosts?”

One peculiarity of the Chinese belief respecting ghosts is forcibly recalled by Charles Dickens’s description of the Ghost of Christmas Past in his famous “Carol.” They are frequently seen in shapeless form, i.e. that the head will first be visible and then the feet, then the body, and so on, the various parts appearing and disappearing in swift succession. Another quaint belief is that a ghost has no chin, and to say to a Cantonese “ni mo ha-pa”—“You’ve no chin,” is equivalent to saying “You’re a Ghost.” Furthermore, the conventional white clothing which European superstition bestows on nearly all ghostly visitors is absent from the Chinese idea. A ghost in this country always appears in the dress he was accustomed to wear during life—a very Marley in fact—and conducts himself in a very ordinary way. There is indeed a refreshing absence of the fee-faw-fum element in Chinese ghostology, this eminently practical people taking a most matter-of-fact view of spirit vagaries. They agree with [73]us however in allotting the hours of darkness to such visitors, who, as with ourselves, are compelled to disappear as the cock’s crow announces the returning dawn. The candle flame, which with us burns blue as the being from another world intrudes himself, is in China alleged to burn green—an odd reminder of the “green fear” of the Greeks. Most Chinese ghost stories turn upon some end to be accomplished by the supernatural visitor; they retail none of the sprightly friskiness attributed to ghosts in Western lands, and altogether the Chinese specimen presents, as a rule, an edifying illustration of how to do one’s work in the quietest and most straightforward manner possible. It must not, however, be imagined that they are endowed by popular belief with benevolent intentions. On the contrary they are supposed to be maliciously inclined, and the very fact that the words for “ghost” and “devil” are the same, and form a portion of the objectionable epithets applied to foreigners (Kwei-tsze in mandarin or Fan-kwai in Cantonese) demonstrates the popular belief. To see a ghost is almost always regarded as an evil omen, and a Chinaman is quite as easily scared as a European by the unwelcome sight. One thus visited is described by his pitying neighbours as “down in his luck.” As a rule, ghosts in China, it is alleged, most often appear either to intimate friends or relations, or to downright enemies. In the former case it is to request the fulfilment of some unaccomplished duty or to aid virtue in distress, in which latter case the ghost gives the weaker but upright party material aid in disposing of his antagonist. As an illustration of the first-named sort of apparition, I quote the following, recently communicated by a resident to the North China Daily News, as told him by his teacher to excuse his non-appearance for some few days:—

“It happened thus; three years ago a soldier who lived near our house was ordered to join his regiment, which was about to march against the rebels. As he was going to battle he did not wish to take his money with him, and he called on my uncle and asked him to take charge of $40, the amount of his property, until his return. My uncle accordingly took charge of the money, and the soldier joined his regiment; but he must have been killed in battle, as we have never heard from him since. The day before yesterday, my uncle, who has for some time been suffering from illness, called us to his bedside, and told us that he was about to die. The soldier, he said, had appeared to him and insisted that my uncle should immediately join him in Hades. We asked my uncle whether he had committed any fault with regard to the $40, for which we might make some atonement by punishing him in any way? He replied that the money was all right, and that we should find it in a certain drawer which he pointed out. My uncle died that day, and it was of course impossible, under such circumstances, that I could come to your Excellency’s place to study.”

Among recent stories of ghosts is one related in a native newspaper of a mandarin who met his death in the late collision between the steamers Fusing and Ocean. The unfortunate man was a passenger in the former steamer, which was sunk in the catastrophe, over 60 other people being also drowned. According to the story his ghost appeared to his wife, who was living in Soochow, streaming [74]with water from head to foot. He told her that he had unfortunately been drowned and could therefore enjoy no more of her society. He also stated that he had sent by a certain friend of his some money for her use before he took passage in the Fusing, and that the friend would arrive shortly. The wife was left in a state of bewilderment, and did not exactly know what to make of it. A day or two afterwards the friend named actually came with the packet of dollars, his arrival being shortly followed by the intelligence of the Fusing’s disaster.

Another story relates to a young Cantonese, who was made commander of a Chinese man-of-war belonging to the Foochow Arsenal fleet. Shortly after his promotion, he was taken ill and died. He was unmarried, as he was very young—only 23 years of age. When he fell sick, he was living at the house of a very intimate friend, a compradore in one of the foreign firms at Foochow. After his death, the friend frequently saw his ghost, and one night he saw it more distinctly than ever. He was lying in bed half asleep and half awake, when he saw the ghost standing by his bedside weeping. The friend addressed it and said: “Young man, you need not cry, it is your fate; you should be satisfied with it.” Thereupon the ghost disappeared, and never shewed itself again to the same party. The ghost appeared however to the men on board the ship he had been commanding, being often seen to pace up and down the deck, as was his wont at night during his lifetime, and sometimes to place itself in the attitude of drilling the men. Though the appearance here narrated seems to have been objectless, the story is quoted as being the type of numberless others which find insertion in the native prints.

The Chinese endow certain sorts of ghosts with peculiarly malevolent powers. Thus those of women who die in childbed, or while pregnant, are peculiarly obnoxious, and those of suicides still more so. The ghosts of those who die natural deaths seldom appear to the survivors; as a rule the fact of a man’s ghost appearing implies that he has died by violence.1 The commonest type of ghost story to be met with in China is that wherein somebody who has been foully dealt with appeals to those who represent his interests to avenge him. It would of course be more odd if there were no coincidences pointing to the truth of the alleged appearances than if there were not. But I must confess that in China as elsewhere they sometimes leave a bona fide impression of the marvellous which can neither be explained nor rejected. [75]

When a man has been murdered by another, his ghost will, it is believed, haunt the murderer wherever he goes, and will only be prevented from doing him a mischief by the want of a suitable opportunity. Thus the presence of idols in the same room completely neutralizes the ghost’s power, and it is moreover believed that in any case no vital injury can be inflicted on the guilty party until the time of his death, as recorded in the Book of Fate, has arrived. The ghosts of suicides (who are distinguished by wearing red silk handkerchiefs) haunt the places in which they committed the fatal deed and endeavour to persuade others to follow their example; at times, it is believed, even attempting to play executioner by strangling those who reject their advances. Mr. Gardner gives the following story as related to him by a Chinese friend:—“A friend of mine, enticed by low rent, took a haunted house, and invited a guest to stay with him. My friend declares he had no dread whatever, and that his guest did not even know that the house was haunted. In the middle of the night he heard a noise as if of struggling proceeding from the guest’s bed. He went to see what was the matter, and found his friend choking in his sleep. Thinking this might be accidental, he invited three friends to stay with him, and the phenomenon repeated itself on all three at the same time. Frightened at this, he made enquiries, and found a woman had committed suicide in the guest’s chamber, and gave up the house.” Another story runs as follows:—“Outside the north gate at Hang-chow there was a house haunted by demons, where no human being dared reside, of which the doors were ever barred and locked. A scholar named Tsʻai bought the house: people all told him he was doing a dangerous thing, but he did not heed them. After the deed of sale had been drawn out, none of his family would enter the house. Tsʻai therefore went by himself, and having opened the doors, lit a candle and sat down. In the middle of the night a woman slowly approached with a red silk handkerchief hanging to her neck, and having saluted him, fastened a rope to the beam of the ceiling, and put her neck in the noose. Tsʻai did not in the least change countenance. The woman again fastened a rope and called on Tsʻai to do as she had done, but he only lifted his leg and put his foot in the noose. The woman said ‘You’re wrong.’ Tsʻai laughed, and said, ‘On the contrary, it was you who were wrong a long time ago, or else you would not have come to this pass.’ The Ghost cried bitterly, and having again bowed to Tsʻai, departed, and from this time the house was no longer haunted. Tsʻai afterwards distinguished himself as a scholar, and some have identified him with Tsʻai-ping-ho, the Provincial Chancellor.” A third tale from the same source illustrates what I have called the practical element in Chinese ghost stories: “At Nanchang, in Kiangsi, were two literary men who used to read in the Polar monastery; one was elderly, the other young; they were united by the bonds of closest friendship. The elder one went to his home, and suddenly died. The younger man did not know of it, and went on with his studies at the monastery in the usual way. One night after he had gone to sleep, he saw his old friend open the bed curtains, come to the bed, and put [76]his hand on his shoulder, saying, ‘Brother, it is only ten days since I parted from you, and now a sudden sickness has carried me off. I am a Ghost. I cannot however forget our friendship, and so have come to bid adieu.’ The young man was so astounded that he could not speak. The old man reassured him, saying, ‘If I had wished to injure you, why should I have told you I was a Ghost; do not fear then. The reason of my visit is that I have a favor to beg of you with regard to the future.’ The young man grew a little calmer, and asked ‘What can I do?’ The Ghost replied, ‘I have a mother over 70, and a wife not yet 30; a few piculs of rice are needed for their maintenance. I beg you to have mercy upon me, and supply their wants. That is my first request. I have also an essay which I have written, which has not been printed. I beg of you to get a block cut for it, and print it, so that my name may not utterly die out. This is my second request. Next I owe the stationers some thousands of cash, which I have not paid; kindly settle the claim. This is my third request.’ The young scholar assented with a nod. The dead man stood up, and said, ‘As you have been kind enough to grant my requests, I will depart.’ Saying this he was about to go, when the young scholar, who had observed from what he said that there was a great deal of human feeling in him, and also that his appearance was as usual, lost all fear of the Ghost, and tried to detain him, ‘We have been such close friends; will you not stay with me now a little while?’ The dead man wept, and came back and sat on the bed, and having conversed about ordinary topics, again stood up, and said, ‘I must now go.’ He stood up and did not move, his eyes stared, and gradually his features changed. The young scholar got frightened and said, ‘Now you have finished what you had to say, you had better go.’ But the dead man stood still, and did not depart. The young man shivered in his bed, and a cold perspiration came over him, but still the guest went not, but stood erect by the bedside. The young man got in a still greater fright, and jumped up and ran away. The Ghost ran with him, and the faster the young man ran, the faster ran the Ghost. After a mile or so of this race they came to a wall, over which the young man vaulted, and fell to the ground. The dead man could not get over the wall, so he hung his head over its ledge, and from his mouth fell some saliva which fell on the young man’s face as he lay. At daybreak some passers-by gave the young man some ginger, and he awakened from his trance. Meanwhile the family of the dead man sought the corpse, but could not find it, but when they heard the news of the corpse looking over the wall they took the body and buried it.”

Although as I have said there is a general absence of “friskiness” in Chinese ghosts, such pranks as those which have attracted attention at home—throwing down crockery, trampling on the floor, &c.—are not unknown. The only difference is that with us, such annoyances seem usually to be purposeless, while in China they are resorted to attract attention to the ghost’s demands. Ghosts, say the natives, are much more liable to appear very shortly after death than at any other period. For the first ten days [77]after the spirit has quitted the body a ghost is said to be 囘煞 ui shat (in Cantonese), returning to its former haunts and attempting to pursue its ordinary avocations. In such cases it is supposed to be accompanied by celestial police termed Yen-lo-hwang, who are responsible that it duly returns to Hades. In order to discover whether such a visit has been paid, the hall in which the body is laid out is strewn with a smooth layer of sand. If it appear clean, or footmarks only are visible, it may be concluded that the deceased is in a state of happiness; but should the marks of chains or dirt be detected, his fate is supposed to be very much the reverse. I may, by the way, note that to constantly dream of deceased relatives is regarded as a sign that the dreamer will soon die.

The superstitions as to deceased husbands visiting their wives are peculiar, but scarcely calculated for popular explanation. A somewhat contemptuous idea seems to prevail amongst the Chinese regarding the intelligence possessed by ordinary ghosts. They are usually spoken of as stupid and easily amenable to the control of those who remain self-possessed. The ghostly hierarchy is well marked off as to its degrees. Thus, on the 17th of the 7th moon, a ceremony called “appeasing the burning mouths,” consists in laying out plates filled with cakes and bearing above them invitations to the “Honourable Homeless Ghosts,” or those whose relations being too poor to provide for them, leave them to the tender mercies of the general public. Those are the paupers of Ghostland. The writer already quoted, says in his amusing paper:—“Though the invitations are addressed to Ghosts near and far, there seems to be a sort of poor law which practically confines the relief afforded to Ghosts of the parish. Of course, it is only disreputable Ghosts who thus consent to live on charity. These pauper spirits are said to do a great deal of harm, and cause epidemics, but luckily the firing of crackers is a cure for the diseases thus caused, as it drives the hungry Ghosts elsewhere. Besides these low bred and malevolent hobgoblins, there are aristocratic and benevolent spirits, one of whom rules the destiny of each of the Chinese cities. These Ghosts are called Chêng-hwang, and receive their appointments in various manners and for various terms. Thus the Chêng-hwang of Chu-chow in Chê-kiang, is the ghost of a man named Shih, who was formerly magistrate of the place, but who died of grief on being unjustly disgraced. He received his appointment from heaven, and appeared to his successor in office to notify the fact. The Chêng-hwang of Hangchow is the ghost of a censor named Chow, who, being unjustly sentenced to death, memorialized the throne to slay his only son, as he feared he would rebel to avenge his father. Both were executed, and afterwards it being found out that the accusation was false, the Emperor, to make amends, appointed his ghost Chêng-hwang of Hangchow in perpetuity, and having executed his accusers, man and wife, made stone images of them, kneeling and in chains, which he caused to be placed in the Chêng-hwang’s temple. The Chêng-hwang of Wu-chang is changed every three to six years, and receives the appointment from the Taoist Patriarch residing at Chang-tien joss-house in Kiangsi, and this is notified to the various Taoist priests.” [78]

“The Chinese almanacks describe sixty ‘Shin of Offence’ or evil ghosts, one of which is abroad on each day of the cycle of sixty. If any one goes out in any particular direction, and afterwards feels heavy-headed or feverish he is supposed to have met this shin. He therefore takes some fruit, rice, &c., and politely bows the creature away in the direction where he met the accident. The shin are pictured in the almanacks as little naked men. When the demons take possession of a sacrificing witch she talks about happiness and misery. Every time they come she is altogether a shin in her eating and drinking and speaking, and every time they go she is altogether a human being. It would be hard to say whether demons are in the witch or the witch in the demons.”2

In an old Chinese farce said to date from the Sung Dynasty entitled 王道士收妖 or “How the Taoist priest Wang exorcised the Ghost,” Wang goes to a haunted house with all his spiritual apparatus, full robes, mitre, &c., and a gong big enough and noisy enough to frighten the boldest devil. Not a bit however does the ghost quail in the present instance, but seizes the gong, the cap and the robes of the holy man, and vows he will turn the tables. At last the priest goes on his knees, and beseeches the ghost not to exorcise him, as he only came in order to earn a few cash; and had he only known beforehand that his Excellency the ghost was really in the house, he would not have ventured to disturb him. The farce ends by the ghost exorcising the priest.

Ghosts of idols are not unknown to the Chinese. “Ten years ago, when the rebels infested the country and the cities were kept under strict restraint, the people of Canton reported that the idol Kwan-yin’s shin, her body dressed in white and in her hand a yak’s tail, perambulated the city wall protecting the rampart; and at San-shuey the common people reported that the rebels saw the shin of the idol Hiun-tan, which is outside the South gate, bodily riding on a black tiger and in his hand a golden whip too awful to be meddled with.”2

Another case of god-ghosts visible to the vulgar eye was gravely recorded a few years since in the Peking Gazette. When the Mahometans were some time ago besieging the district city of Chang-wei, they suddenly halted, and ran away. The explanation is that when the rebels approached the temple of Ta pi-peh (god of the star Venus) they saw a terrible vision—“gods clad in golden mail and armed with swords and shields, drawn up in battle array, numerous as forest trees, and all along the top of the city wall innumerable red lamps;” and as a general fire of musketry and cannon from the wall was heard, the assailants were scared, and they abandoned their onslaught on the city.

The residence of human ghosts in Hades is supposed to be subject to conditions very like those obtaining amongst mortals. They sally forth on their visits to the world at permitted times and are free so long as they behave themselves. But any infringement of the ghostly laws which regulate their conduct is met by prompt punishment and a seclusion which effectually prohibits their revisiting earthly scenes of pleasure or business. Even when enjoying to the full all the privileges of ghostdom, they are not able at all times to do what they would. Mortals may deter them from appearing by pasting up pictures of [79]Chung-Kwai 鍾葵 the Beelzebub of China, on the walls of their rooms. Talismans written in perfectly unintelligible characters are also in use, and, as already seen, Taoist priests are credited with the possession of curious powers as exorcists. Pictures of Warriors pasted on the doors of houses are efficacious, as are also the pieces of perforated paper so often seen waving from the lintels.

The belief in ghosts does not limit itself to those of mankind only. The spirits of certain animals are also supposed to manifest themselves in a similar way, but this section of the subject will be more fully dealt with under the head of witchcraft and demonology. As an illustration however of animal ghostdom pure and simple, the following story may be cited:—A resident at Canton named Ling was the owner of a monkey belonging to a species known as yuan, which is supposed to be peculiarly intelligent and possesses an almost human mind. The natives believe that if one of these monkeys has plenty of water given to it, it will attain an enormous size, larger than that of an average man. The monkey in question had been in Mr. Ling’s family for some 40 years, but never having been allowed to drink water, was of small stature. One day Mr. Ling’s little son was passing the monkey when it put out its hand and snatched away his cap. The child complained to his father, who thereupon chastised the animal heavily with a whip; upon this the monkey became sulky, refused all food and in a few days died. Shortly afterwards the monkey’s ghost began to haunt the house. Food placed on the table vanished mysteriously and many of the curious phenomena attributed to ghostly interference took place. At last a fire broke out in the house unaccountably, and Mr. Ling shifted his residence. But the monkey’s ghost still followed him and continued its persecutions. Again he moved house and again the ghost accompanied him, until at length, as a last resource, he took a room in the Temple of the 500 Worthies and finally evaded his persecutor. The monkey ghost did not dare face the gods, and so left him in peace. The party mentioned was but a year ago still residing in the temple.

The foregoing pages, though by no means exhaustive of the subject, will it is thought be sufficient to indicate the agreement of Chinese with Western belief as regards ghosts and apparitions. The line of demarcation between the subjects already treated of, and that of witchcraft and demonology, being somewhat indefinite, those curious in the matter will find additional information in the succeeding chapter under that head.