Bumped Into A Ghost (撞鬼)

Have you ever walked along a perfectly empty street and suddenly bumped into a person, and when you have excused yourself only to find that there is no one in front or around you? It might just be your own imagination. However, if you also feel cold and subsequently developed Goosebumps or localised skin colour changed and hardening; then most probably that you have bumped into a ghost. That is what Chinese believe, take it or leave it. Of course, some folks might also have this experience: when they were driving, their car suddenly bumped into an object. But upon investigation, nothing was ever found…

Wendy has starred in many Hong Kong ghost movies until the 90’s. She has many ghostly experiences because most of those ghost movies were being filmed in real haunted locations. In addition, Wendy’s role as vengeful ghost seemed also have attracted many other real ghosts to her too… When she called upon me, then I knew something was not quite right.

During filming one of those ghost stories, the film director asked if Wendy wanted to actually sleep in a newly exhumed grave while she was playing a role of a vengeful ghost; or she can opt to choose a stuntwoman in lieu of her. Without due consideration, Wendy agreed to sleep in the grave hole where she would force open a coffin cover and rose from the grave. Her mom wasn’t that happy, so she gave Wendy a red packet filled with a piece of needle, some pine leaves and a coin and asked Wendy to throw the red packet away before she returned home.

According to Wendy, she immediately regretted as soon as she was lying in the coffin because she at once experience severe headache and feeling difficult to breathe. Not only inside the coffin was stuffy, she felt an invisible pressure was pressing against her chest. Luckily, the filming session was relatively short and it was to her relief when the director called out ‘cut’.

Finally, Wendy jumped into her car and drove back to her house. When her car approached a sharp corner at a downhill slope, she saw a white figure rushed out from nowhere into the middle of the road. Wendy immediately stepped onto the brake but there was a loud bang and she was pretty sure that her car has rammed into something. So, Wendy stopped her car at the roadside and went out to investigate but she couldn’t find anything on or beside the road. When she inspected her car bumper and bonnet, there were no sign of impact what so ever.

Now Wendy started to feel a sense of chillness rose from her spine, she suddenly thought of her mom’s red packet. So, she immediately took out the red packet and threw it away. Without thinking too much, she immediately jumped into her car and sped off toward her house.

As Wendy told me later, she was subsequently sick for a week. When she asked me if the ‘thing’ she bumped into was a ghost of some sort; and it did make her sick because she had offended the ghost? My answer was yes and no. The ‘yes’ meant it was a spirit Wendy had bumped into, while the ‘no’ meant that Wendy’s sickness might have caused by virus infection rather than spirits. Since the grave was newly exhumed, there are bound to be some bacteria of some kind. Normally such grave hole would be cleansed by burning a few pieces of joss paper before letting anyone entering into the hole as a precautionary measure.