A Horror Ghost-story in Vietnam: SEVEN YARDS OF WHITE CLOTH

 

A Horror Ghost-story in Vietnam:

SEVEN YARDS OF WHITE CLOTH

This is a true story related to Thuan Kieu Plaza, one of the most haunted places in Saigon, Vietnam. Thuan Kieu Plaza was later renamed The Garden Mall in 2015 and reopened in 2017, its address is at No. 190 Hong Bang street, Ward 12, District 5, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam.

The story took place in the autumn of 2002 among a group of Hoa-people (Chinese-Vietnamese) students mainly living in the Cho Lon area of Saigon. This group of friends in junior school went to the same school, but when they went to high school, they would learn to different schools, each person would be in different directions. Since they are all Hoa-people, most of them will be sent to the Chinese school in District 5 to study. From 1996 to that time, Vietnamese society stirred up with the series of Young and Dangerous with the main character Chan Ho-Nam, these young students also admired them, often go to Thuan Kieu Plaza to hunt for the film tapes of "Young and Dangerous: The Prequel" played by Nicholas Tse Ting-fung. At that time, the actors who played Chan Ho-nam all looked handsome, so they became favorite idols of contemporary teenagers. Thuan Kieu Plaza is a complex of all Sino cultural elements, designed in Hong Kong style.

At this time, among those groups of students, there was a boy called A Li, his family lives in Lot C of Thuan Kieu Plaza, the living environment around here is quite gloomy. At the age of 15, the boy was enrolled at Tran Huu Trang High School located at 276 Tran Hung Dao Street, Ward 11, District 5, Ho Chi Minh City. A few dozen meters away from this school is Soai Kinh Lam market (also known as Dong Khanh Shopping Center), specializes in selling various fabrics. This school teaches Vietnamese and Chinese (Cantonese) programs, where A Li gets to know and fall in love with a pretty girl called A Man. Contrary to the custom of Hoa-people - they often direct their descendants back to their ethnic roots, A Man's family from elementary school and above let her study at Cantonese schools, but when she reaches high school, they wants her went to a Vietnamese school. Therefore, she only studied at Tran Huu Trang High School for a short time and then had to change schools. It is a regulation of Vietnamese high schools that all female students must wear traditional ao dai (long-shirt).

The love of this teenage couple is the first love, the love of school age, innocence and purity. That boy and girl have been in love for some time, but he never took his girlfriend back to his house at Thuan Kieu Plaza. It was not until the beginning of autumn that he brought A Man and his friends to the house, after a while they dragged each other down to the gaming spot below the Thuan Kieu building. After having fun, they went out to the main entrance of the building, the night sky was very cool, with the autumn rain falling gently on the streetlights that lit the area. In the midst of that romantic space, the boy fairly embraces his girlfriend and gently kisses her on the forehead, so sweet and numb like a couple in a Korean love drama. At the end of the romance, the group of friends invited each other to eat che soup, When the meal was almost finished, A Man was startled to exclaim:

- Damn it! Now it's 10h30 at night, how can I buy white cloth?

Originally, that afternoon A Man's mother gave her money and told her to go buy a pile of white cloth to make ao dai to prepare for the first day of school, but because she was so playful, she forgot. A friend heard this and said:

- Do not know if this time at Soai Kinh Lam market still sells or not? There are a lot of fabric stalls out there, if you go out hoping to sell them.

The group heard it all understand what, they told A Li:

- Then we go home. Take A Man to the fabric market!

A Li got up to get the bicycle and then broke up with everyone, he drove A Man to the market to buy cloth.

***

The second day, went to school, but could not find his lover at school. At morning did not seen, at afternoon did not seen, at evening was invisible. Must know that youth love is so strong, one minute apart, it seems to have been farewell for one thousand years.

The next afternoon, home from school, the boy made an appointment with his friends to gather near Nguyen Thien Thuat Apartment in District 3 at 4:00 pm, they planned to cycle to District 5 to have fun. At that time, A Li sat nervously in a coffee-shop near the meeting place, a friend of his, A Tan, came to meet. A Li waved to A Tan and said:

- I'm so worried, I haven't seen A Man go to school these days.

A Tan asked:

- The night before yesterday when you broke up, could you take A Man to buy cloth? Or she couldn't afford it, so she got cursed and beaten by her mother, so she couldn't go to school.

- I bought cloth yesterday. – A Li asserted.

- Or was it because she came home late, she was scolded ... – A Tan speculated.

A Li was so impatient, he stood up and took some coins to hire a landline call at the shop. Picked up the dial phone and waited to hear a ring, he heard a voice on the other end:

- Hello!

- Can I ask you, is A Man at home?

- She has left the house and seems to be coming to you. – A Man's mother said.

- Yes, thank you. - A Li hung up the phone after saying that.

Everyone came in full, they sat and played cards until 7pm, but still did not see A Man coming. A Li startled, he continued to call A Man's family with a shyly expression. Again the voice of A Man's mother:

- A Man just came home not long, she's gone to bed. Doesn't she have to go out with you?

A Li hung up in the warmth, he was very worried because he didn't know why A Man lied to her mother. Did she give him a "horny"? His impulse and possessiveness made him feel angry. In the following days, A Li still called A Man's house, but was always told by the girl's mother that she went out with A Li. But to be honest, A Man never went to see A Li. So where did she go?

That night, A Li decided to go to A Man's house with his friends and wait for her to come back. It was not until 11:30 at night that they saw A Man enter the home, wearing a white ao dai with her hair down, walking like a soulless person, walking past Ali's face without saying a word or looking at it, as if she didn't know him. A Li was stunned and stood motionless, watching A Man go upstairs with tears in his eyes and his heart beating fiercely. A Tan, a friend standing next to him, said hastily:

- Why don't you tell her but let her go upstairs?

- Come on, go home, A Tan. She doesn't love me anymore! - A Li turned and said sadly.

- How do you know she doesn't love you? Even if she doesn't love you anymore, you must ask why, should you go back? – Asked A Tan.

A Li said nothing more, he tired came out and rode his bicycle home.

***

Two days later, A Li and his friends heard a shocking flash news: A Man committed suicide by jumping off a building. She left a suicide letter, which read: "Madam, don't hurt my parents, I will die for serve you." The letter was handed over to the police in the ward where she lived and committed suicide. As for the girl, she was taken to Nguyen Tri Phuong hospital located on Nguyen Trai street, ward 8, district 5 for treatment, but she did not survive.

On the day of her funeral, A Li and his friends also attended in full. A Man's mother cried miserably and struggled in front of her daughter's picture. As soon as the mother saw A Li, she quickly took the boy's hand and immediately asked:

- Did she see you in the past? How did it happen that caused her to commit suicide? Who is the "madam" she mentioned in the letter, you know?

There were also policemen standing nearby listening to their conversations and serving the investigation. A policeman calmly asked:

- If you know any information, please fully provide the police. Who might the "madam" who threatened her be mentioned in the letter?

The young men told A Man's mother and police officers about the whole process. When talking about A Li drove A Man to Soai Kinh Lam market at about 11 pm to buy cloth, my mother remembered that from the next few days, the girl had been wearing white ao dai on her. Adults are very surprised, don't Ali know, in such a late night, Soai Kinh Lam market is basically closed, there is no trade? The market is very busy only during the day and will not be open from 5 pm. Besides, on the right side of the market is Thuan Kieu Plaza, which forms a dark space at night, just like hell.

When they entered the market, they tried hard to find a place to sell cloth. Fortunately, they saw a cloth stall. The shopkeeper was a woman who was cleaning up the goods. They came in for the cloth, and she said:

- White cloth is not on sale now, but ready-made ao dai is on sale. Would you like to try it on?

A Man nodded. She came in and tried on the shirt. It fitted perfectly. Asking for the price, the purchase price is quite cheap. For the police, this is a unbelievable incident, but the details of "woman" caught their attention. A police officer suggested taking A Li to Soai Kinh Lam Market to show him that it was a cloth stall. However, when they went there to observe, A Li did not realize which cloth stall was in the market. He tried to recollect its location and finally led to a place, not a stall, but a junction of the market's crossroads, which was completely empty. Frustrated by the lack of clues, they came back and no one knew why.

Later, before the end of the 49-day sacrificial weeks, A Man's mother called A Li and invited young men to visit A Man's grave. The purpose of their visit was to worshiping the sacrificial ceremony and light incense to commemorate the dead. But what is creepy is that this group of people went to visit the grave, but until noon, they were still trying to find A Man's grave. Only A Man's mother knew where her daughter's grave was, but she could not determine where the grave was, just like they were lost in a maze. The mother felt very strange, so she turned to ask the priest in the group:

- Have we ever been blindfolded by ghosts?

The priest could not explain, the group asked the security guard who managed the tomb also did not have an answer, they had to leave. The next day, the group decided to visit the grave again, but this time the mother took precautions by brought a genuine shaman with her. On the way, the shaman told the mother:

-It is very likely that A Man was possessed by a demon!

At that time, those young men still did not know what "possessed by a demon" was. Shaman said:

-Then you take me to the place you think is your daughter's grave.

The mother led the shaman to a wasteland and said:

-I think this position should be my daughter's grave!

The Shaman immediately picked up the magic seal, and scattered the amulet around the designated position, then took out a roll of red thread and tied it there. The shaman asked everyone to form a circle of red lines. When he returned to his original position, he said to his mother:

-Look, the one who harmed your daughter! Her name was engraved on the tombstone.

Everyone looked up at the name engraved on the tombstone, which was the name of a woman written in Sino characters. The year of her death was more than 60 years ago, about the 1940s. Therefore, the tombstone is still covered with old green moss. What is even more strange is that this woman's grave lies on A Man's grave. The shaman said to A Man's mother:

-This woman has become an evil spirit! She arrested the girl and forced her to commit suicide.

The shaman cast miracle and burned the woman's grave with fire. Then he instructed everyone to continue to take the red thread and turn around again. When they returned to original place, the exact grave of A Man was revealed with picture and flowers in memory of her. The young men were very surprised. To them, this was just an unusual magic show. On the ground of the grave, there are still many shaman’s amulets scattered, and the thread is wrapped around a pillar, which cannot be forged. The mother was in so much pain, she rushed into her daughter's grave, hugged and cried bitterly.

It turned out, the night A Li and A Man went to Soai Kinh Lam market to buy cloth at exactly 12:00 p.m. instead of 11:00 p.m. as the boy remembered wrongly. The woman who sold ao dai to them was actually a female evil-spirit who had died in that place for a long time. No one lit incense or ignored candles at it. When A Man wore the shirt given to her by it, the evil spirit had entered her body from that moment on. The nights A Man was absent, she did not go out with A Li, which meant that she was taken to the woman's grave to weed, kneel down and be forced to serve it. A Man's birth date is a perfect match for the demon, thus it forces her commit suicide to steal her soul.

A Man committed suicide at a very bad time, 7:00 pm Saturday. Her body was buried with white seven-yard cloth. For a long time, there has been an invisible rules in Soai Kinh Lam market: don't buy fabrics, don't buy wigs made of real hair, and don't buy sewing needles at night. So, what exactly was the Soai Kinh Lam market in the past? What's going on here? Why are there such “hidden” rules?

Finally, four years later, A Li emigrated to Hongkong to live with his family and died in a traffic accident.

Collected by Nguyen Thanh Sang

See Chinese link: https://nghiencuunguyenthanhsang.blogspot.com/2021/02/blog-post_3.html