Chinese Urban Legends and Myths Iceberg Explained | PART 1

[00:00:00]Tier one.

[00:00:02]The Hello Kitty murder.

[00:00:06]So, we're starting with a story that is horrifyingly true. This isn't a legend.

[00:00:11]It actually happened in Hong Kong back in 1999.

[00:00:16]A nightclub hostess named Fan Man-yee was kidnapped by three men and held in an apartment. What they did to her was just unspeakably brutal.

[00:00:26]But, the detail that made this case infamous, the part that everyone remembers, is what they did afterwards.

[00:00:34]After her death, they dealt with her body and her skull was found hidden inside the head of a large Hello Kitty mermaid doll.

[00:00:46]Just think about it for a second.

[00:00:48]>> [clears throat] >> The super innocent happy symbol of childhood used to hide something so horrific. It's a chilling real-life reminder that monsters can hide in plain sight.

[00:01:00]This one comes from the court records and was all over the news, like the South China Morning Post.

[00:01:06]It's just very, very gruesome.

[00:01:11]The number four curse.

[00:01:13]Tetraphobia.

[00:01:16]This one is all about a spooky coincidence in language.

[00:01:20]In Mandarin and other Chinese dialects, the word for the number four sounds almost exactly like the word for death.

[00:01:34]And this isn't just a fun fact. It's a genuine superstition called tetraphobia.

[00:01:41]You can see it in real life. If you're in a building in China or even in many other East Asian countries, you might notice there's no fourth floor. The elevator buttons will go from three to five.

[00:01:55]Same for the 14th, 24th, and so on. It's considered a deeply unlucky number.

[00:02:02]And the stories say that living or working on the so-called death floors brings all kinds of misfortune. All that from a single sound.

[00:02:13]The boy in red.

[00:02:15]This is another true story.

[00:02:17]And it is seriously unsettling.

[00:02:20]And has never been fully explained to the public's satisfaction.

[00:02:25]In 2009, a 13-year-old boy in a rural part of >> Chongqing >> was found deceased in his home. The scene was bizarre. He was wearing his cousin's red dress.

[00:02:37]In folklore, red is a powerful color often associated with female ghosts seeking revenge.

[00:02:45]His hands and feet were tied with a very complex and specific knots. And he was suspended from a ceiling beam with a weight tied to his feet.

[00:02:56]Which is a very strange and ritualistic-looking way to die.

[00:03:01]The police ruled it an accidental death.

[00:03:04]But for a lot of people, that just doesn't add up.

[00:03:08]The red dress, the weird knot, it felt like a ritual or foul play.

[00:03:13]It's become a huge modern mystery with people online debating if it was a murder or something supernatural.

[00:03:23]The Hungry Ghost Festival.

[00:03:26]So, this isn't just one story. It's a whole month of being cautious.

[00:03:31]During the seventh month of the lunar calendar, it's believed that the gates of the underworld open and all the ghosts come out to wander the earth.

[00:03:41]These are the hungry ghosts, spirits who are forgotten or had bad death.

[00:03:47]So, for a whole month, people burn paper money and leave out offerings of food on the street to appease them.

[00:03:54]It's part respect, part please don't come bother me.

[00:03:58]There are all these rules for the month, too. Like, don't go swimming late at night because a water ghost might pull you under for company. Or, if you hear someone call your name from behind in the dark, don't turn around.

[00:04:11]It's a whole session of looking over your shoulder.

[00:04:15]And I don't know why I'm realizing something right now. Why are a lot of these Chinese folk lores related to a ghost wanting you or be attracted to you?

[00:04:24]Strange, isn't it?

[00:04:27]Ghost marriages.

[00:04:31]Okay, this one is super interesting because it's a real ancient custom that has spawned a ton of ghost stories. A ghost marriage is pretty much what it sounds like. A wedding ceremony for two deceased people, or sometimes a living person and a ghost.

[00:04:49]The idea is to make sure a spirit isn't lonely in the afterlife, or to continue a family line.

[00:04:56]But this is where the urban legend part comes in. The story goes, if you're walking down the street and see a red envelope just laying on the ground, don't pick it up. A family looking for a spouse for their dead child might leave it there as an offering.

[00:05:13]If you pick it up, you have basically accepted the marriage proposal.

[00:05:18]Now, if you're engaged to a ghost, and if you back out, you might have a very angry lonely spirit following you around. So, yeah, maybe leave that envelope where it belongs.

[00:05:31]Fox spirits.

[00:05:33]These are a huge deal in Chinese folklore.

[00:05:36]They're basically shapeshifters, and they most often appear as a really, really attractive woman.

[00:05:43]The legend says, as they do, their supernatural seducers will drain the life force or yang energy from men, leading them to ruin or death. Now, you can imagine what that looks like. I'll leave that up to you.

[00:05:58]The modern twist on this is that fox spirits have become a slang for a home wrecker or someone who uses their looks to manipulate people.

[00:06:09]People might whisper about a celebrity or a business person who seems a little too charismatic or successful, saying they must be a fox spirit. The legend has basically adapted from ancient folklore into modern gossip.

[00:06:24]The nine-headed bird.

[00:06:27]Let's end tier one with a classic monster from folklore.

[00:06:31]I'm not even going to pretend to pronounce the name.

[00:06:34]>> Jiu tou niao.

[00:06:36]>> Or the nine-headed bird.

[00:06:38]It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like, a giant monstrous bird with nine heads. Seeing this thing is considered a terrible omen.

[00:06:49]It's not a creature you marvel at. It's one you run from.

[00:06:53]It's said to predict disasters like plagues, floods, or even personal tragedy for whoever sees it.

[00:07:00]Some stories even say it steals the souls of children.

[00:07:04]Especially seeing this thing fly overhead is like getting the worst news of your life delivered by a horrifying nine-headed monster bird.

[00:07:17]The last bus to Fragrant Hills.

[00:07:21]This [clears throat] is probably the most famous story that comes out of Beijing.

[00:07:26]The story goes that on a cold night in 1995, the last bus number 375 was heading towards the Fragrant Hills.

[00:07:36]There were only a few people on board.

[00:07:39]The bus stops and picks up three people.

[00:07:41]Two of them are holding up the third person between them, and they're all wearing old-fashioned Qing Dynasty robes. An old woman on the bus gets super agitated.

[00:07:51]She starts a fight with a young man, accuses him of stealing her wallet, and forces the driver to stop and let them both off.

[00:07:59]Once they're off the bus, the woman tells the young man, "I had to save us.

[00:08:05]I saw those three.

[00:08:07]Their feet weren't touching the ground."

[00:08:10]The next day, the news reports that the last 37 bus vanished.

[00:08:15]It was supposedly found later in a reservoir miles away with three heavily decomposed bodies inside.

[00:08:23]Is it true?

[00:08:24]There's no official record, but ask anyone in Beijing, and they will make you remember.

[00:08:31]The cursed apartment.

[00:08:33]So, here's the thing about a city where 40 million people are stacked on top of each other in identical high-rises.

[00:08:42]Eventually, you're going to live in the same room someone died in. You just don't know it yet.

[00:08:48]That's basically the engine [music] behind this one.

[00:08:50]The story usually starts the same way. A listing that is way too cheap for the location.

[00:08:56]Like suspiciously cheap. And if you take it, weird stuff starts happening almost immediately. Cold spots that don't match the AC. A smell that comes and goes.

[00:09:06]Doors that don't stay shut. Neighbors get cagey when you ask how long the place sat empty. What I find genuinely unsettling about this one isn't the ghost part. It's the mundane part underneath it.

[00:09:18]Property agents in some of these stories are accused of just not disclosing death in the units because legally in a lot of places, you don't have to. So, somewhere under the folklore is a very real, a very boring horror. You might already be living in one of these apartments, and you just don't know the the yet. The vanishing Hitchhiker.

[00:09:38]Okay, this is one almost every culture on Earth has a version of, which honestly makes it creepier, not less.

[00:09:45]Like humans everywhere independently arrive at the same nightmare.

[00:09:49]The Chinese version plays out on those lines. Empty provincial road at night.

[00:09:54]You're driving.

[00:09:55]Headlights are the only light for miles.

[00:09:58]And there's a woman standing on your shoulders. You stop because who wouldn't? And she gets in without saying much. Maybe she gives you an address.

[00:10:08]Sometimes it's a cemetery.

[00:10:10]You drive, you talk, you glance over to ask something, and the seat's empty.

[00:10:16]Door never opened, never closed. Just a cold, damp patch where she was sitting.

[00:10:22]Some version of the story goes one layer deeper.

[00:10:25]You drive to the address she gave you, knock on the door, and whoever answers tells you that that's their daughter's grave, and that she died on that patch of road years ago.

[00:10:35]That's the version that actually gets me. Not the disappearing part. The part where you go and check.

[00:10:43]Lady in Red.

[00:10:45]Quick lesson before this one. Red in Chinese culture is usually good news.

[00:10:50]Weddings, New Year, luck. Ghost stories love taking a good luck color and flipping it into a warning sign. And that's exactly what happens here. The Lady in Red shows up on empty streets, usually late. Always in a >> cheongsam >> Always striking.

[00:11:08]And the legend is very specific about the danger. It's not that she attacks you, it's that you follow her. Men in these stories describe it almost like tunnel vision, just an overwhelming pull to see where she's going, down an alley, off the main road, somewhere darker.

[00:11:25]The ones who make it back describe losing time. The ones who don't just don't come back. Almost every version traces her to the same origin.

[00:11:34]A woman wronged badly enough in life that vengeance is the only thing left for her.

[00:11:39]Which, if you think about it, is one of the more consistent rules in Chinese ghost folklore.

[00:11:45]The dead who come back angry are almost always the dead who were failed by someone living.

[00:11:51]Painted skin.

[00:11:53]This one's old, like Pu Songling 17th century Strange Tales from the Chinese Studio old.

[00:11:59]And it's still one of the most adapted horror stories in Chinese cinema.

[00:12:03]There's a reason for that.

[00:12:05]A scholar meets a woman on the road.

[00:12:08]Gorgeous, clearly out of place, clearly in some kind of trouble.

[00:12:12]He takes her in.

[00:12:14]Hospitality, sympathy, maybe a little bit of I didn't think this through.

[00:12:20]And it's fine for a while, until one night he can't sleep. Wanders past her door and looks through a gap in the frame.

[00:12:28]And what's on the other side is not a woman. It's a demon.

[00:12:32]Green-skinned, hunched over a table, painting a human face onto a stretched piece of skin with a brush, the way you would paint a mask.

[00:12:41]He watches it finish, lift the skin up like a coat, and put it on, and it becomes her again.

[00:12:49]I think what makes this one hit differently from a lot of beware beautiful stranger stories is the craft of it.

[00:12:55]She's not naturally beautiful and civil underneath.

[00:12:59]She's manufacturing beauty, one brush stroke at a time.

[00:13:03]Use it as a tool.

[00:13:05]That's definitely a disturbing image for a story that's centuries old.

[00:13:10]Red thread of fate.

[00:13:12]Last one for this tier, and it's a mood shift.

[00:13:15]This one starts sweet before it turns.

[00:13:18]The core myth is that an invisible red thread ties your ankle to the ankle of the person you're fated to end up with.

[00:13:25]Doesn't matter the distance, years, the circumstances.

[00:13:29]The thread stretches, but it never breaks, and eventually it pulls you both to the same place.

[00:13:35]It's actually a genuinely popular romantic idea in East Asian pop culture.

[00:13:39]Shows up in dramas and songs constantly.

[00:13:43]But the folklore has a darker footnote that doesn't get talked about as much.

[00:13:47]What happens if the thread gets cut?

[00:13:49]Not stretched, not tangled, severed.

[00:13:53]Some versions say it means the soulmate lost forever.

[00:13:57]A marriage that will never happen, no matter how many people you try.

[00:14:01]Other nastier versions say it's an omen of early death for one or both people.

[00:14:06]Because you have broken something a god tied on purpose. It's a good note to end the shadows on, honestly. Even the romantic legends in this iceberg have a body count if you dig one layer down.

[00:14:20]Forbidden City.

[00:14:23]Half a millennium of emperors, executions, and palace intrigue in one walled-off compound. You'd be more surprised if this place didn't have ghost stories attached to it. The most repeated one that people often talk about is when staff and security guards over the years claiming that after the museum closes, some of the old rooms fill with the sounds of footsteps, of woman crying, and what people describe as old style music playing faintly from somewhere with no speaker.

[00:14:52]There's always a specific rule that isn't official policy, but everyone seems to know anyway. Don't be inside after dark, and definitely don't ever take photos in certain courtyards, because things show up in them that weren't there when the picture was taken. What makes this one land differently than a generic old building is haunted story is the scale of what happened here. Concubines who lived and died inside these walls without ever leaving. Executions carried out in a specific courtyard for centuries. If any place earned the ghost stories through sheer volume of grief is this one.

[00:15:25]Kowloon Walled City.

[00:15:28]This one barely needs the supernatural angle because the real history is disturbing enough on its own. Before it was demolished in 1994, Kowloon Walled City was the most densely populated place on Earth. A lawless, ungoverned maze of stacked buildings, so tightly packed that sunlight never reached the ground floor. No police jurisdiction, minimal regulation, corridors that turned into open sewers, wiring done by nobody in particular.

[00:15:53]People were born, lived, and died in that without even really being touched by the outside world. The ghost stories that came out of it is almost secondary to the fact that people described the place itself having a kind of presence.

[00:16:06]Visitors and former residents talking about a heaviness in the air, a sense of being watched in the dark stairwells.

[00:16:13]Even after it being torn down and turned into a park, sometimes the scariest haunted house stories aren't about a ghost. They're about a place that swallows thousands of lives quietly, enough that most of the world never noticed.

[00:16:25]Haunted phone number.

[00:16:28]Modern folklore needs a modern medium, and this is China's version of the cursed phone call.

[00:16:33]You get a call from a number you don't recognize.

[00:16:36]Sometimes it's late at night. You pick up and there's nothing.

[00:16:41]Just silence or breathing. Or in some versions, a voice that says something specific to you, something it shouldn't know. You call the number back and it's disconnected, or it belongs to someone who died, or it simply doesn't exist when you check. There are local variations tied to specific number patterns considered unlucky, area codes people avoid, strings of digits that show up in enough stories that people have jokingly refused to use them. It's the same bones of every don't answer unknown number story worldwide, but with a distinct Chinese anxiety folded in.

[00:17:13]The idea that a number itself is cursed, not just whoever's calling from it.

[00:17:19]Water ghost.

[00:17:20]Every culture with rivers and lakes seem to invent some version of this. And China's is one of the more merciless ones. The shui gui is a spirit of someone who drowned.

[00:17:31]And the deal is straightforward and awful.

[00:17:33]They can't move on until they pull someone else under to take their place.

[00:17:37]So they wait near a specific bend in a river, a particular section of lake, a spot where the current is stronger than it looks. They'll grab an ankle, tug at a leg, make the water suddenly deeper than it is a second ago. It's a folklore explanation parents actually use. Don't swim there, don't swim at night, don't swim alone.

[00:17:56]Because something down there needs you more than you need to cool off.

[00:18:00]And enough of these spots correspond to real drowning location that the story functions less like a ghost tale and more like an inherited warning system dressed up in something scarier than the current is strong here.

[00:18:13]Dama square dancing.

[00:18:15]This is the one that always throws people off because it doesn't sound like a folklore at all. It sound like a noise complaint. And that's exactly the joke buried in it. Dama square dancing groups, mostly older women, dancing in public square to loud music every morning have become such a fixture and such a source of neighborhood conflict that stories started circulating about groups who wouldn't stop even when confronted, who kept dancing through arguments, through police visits, through attempts to cut their power.

[00:18:43]Some versions escalated into genuine uncanny territory. A group still dancing in an empty square at 3:00 a.m. with no music playing, in perfect unison, like muscle memory outlived whatever was supposed to stop it. It's folklore born out of real, very mundane urban friction, which is honestly what makes it interesting. The horror isn't supernatural in origin, it's social.

[00:19:05]It's a fear of something so relentless and communal that it stopped feeling controllable.

[00:19:11]Guangzhou Liwan Plaza.

[00:19:12]A real still standing shopping mall in Guangzhou has become notorious for being almost entirely empty despite being in a busy area and the internet has spent years trying to explain why. The building's actual history involves land disputes and unresolved compensation issues with people relocated to make way for it which soured the site before it even opened.

[00:19:32]But the story that spread widely is much darker that the land was built over a mass grave or over unmarked burials and that the failure of the mall, empty storefronts, dead escalators and an eerie quiet in a city that's rarely quiet is a site rejecting the building put on top of it. Photos of the place circulate constantly, rows of shuttered shops under flickering lights and it has become a favorite for urban explorers especially because the emptiness itself photographs like something out of a horror film or the backrooms, real or not.

[00:20:05]Penglai Immortal Mountain Mystery Ending tier three with something that isn't quite a ghost story. It's older and stranger than that.

[00:20:15]Penglai is one of the mythical mountain islands in Chinese legends set to float somewhere in the Bohai Sea home to immortals and reachable only by those pure enough or lucky enough to find it. Emperors sent entire expeditions looking for it.

[00:20:30]Chasing rumors of elixirs of immortality supposedly kept there.

[00:20:34]None of them came back with proof it existed. What keeps this one alive isn't the scary encounter, it's the mirage.

[00:20:41]The city of Penglai on the actual coast is famous for a real documented atmospheric phenomenon where the shimmering skyline, towers, walls, shapes looks like a floating city appears over the sea under a specific weather conditions and then vanishes.

[00:20:56]So you've got centuries of people staring at a real physical mirage and going, that's it. That's the immortal island. It's one of the rare legends in the whole list where the proof isn't a rumor, is something people actually watched appear in the sky and disappeared again.