From: selina@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca (Selina Glynn)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories
Subject: Chinese ghost tale
Date: 8 Sep 92 19:50:17 GMT
Organization: Defence and Civil Institute of Environmental Medicine

I personally had never encountered any spirit or suspected seeing or
hearing anything, but everybody loves ghost stories and Chinese as
a ancient culture has no shortage of ghost stories.  The following is
a famous opera piece named "Li Wei Liang".  

The story as I remembered happened in late South Song Dynasty about 
a thousand years ago.  There was a court official who held the position
equivalent to a Secretary of State of today.  Let's just referred to him
by his last name Cai. He was a very corrupted official.  He decided to
use the money from the defence fund on buying new concubines.  He got a
batch of 36 concubines.  One of the young women, the most beautiful one of 
all was Li Wei Liang.  Her name means nice lady, Li was her last name.

The capital of South Song was located in the scenic city of HangZhou,
in the Yangtze River region.  One day when the official took his new
concubines for a cruise on the magnificent West Lake.  The official was
away to look after his own business.  Lady Wei was on the deck all by 
herself.  The boat was docked right by a willow tree.  All of a sudden
the willow branches opened up and a yound man showed up on the other side.
They were both shock, but admired each other's charm.  They exchanged 
their admiration for each other, but were sad to find out that the young
lady has already been married.  The young man left with a broken heart.

Wei was still fantasizing about her short romance and uttered to herself 
"what a good looking young man".  Cai was back and heard her words.
He was so mad that she had the nerve to meet another man.  In his rage, 
he killed her.

The young man's name was Pu.  He was one of the young scholar that did not
agreed with the official's weak defence policy.  Cai asked Pu to see him 
to discuss policies.  Pu agreed.  Cai had Pu stayed for the night.  In 
the meant time, Cai has arranged someone to kill Pu in the middle of the
night.

That night, the killer showed up at Pu's door.  He went in through the
window.  Went straight to Pu's bed, he saw Pu lying in his bed.  He drew
his sword and went for Pu's head.  All of a sudden, two red ribbon shadows
dance in the air.  (The red ribbons were tab sleeves of female costume.)  
He couldn't get close to Pu.  He tried to get close.  Pu was pulled away 
and ran off under a red cloud.  

The killer went back to report the incident to Cai.  They suspected one
of the concubine had saved Pu.  They gathered all the concubines together
but found no one was wearing red.  They remembered when Wei died she was
wearing red.  (In Chinese folk tales, if you want your spirit to hault
after you die.  You wear red before you die.)

Pu was saved by Wei's ghost.  They fell in love again.  Pu suggested
Wei to stay.  Wei told him to get a travel ticket, (These are paper ticket
that you get from any Chinese incent store, supposed to allow ghosts to 
travel from place to place.) and an umbella (Chinese ghost afraid of
sunlight and willow tree, with an umbella you can protect the spirit from
disappearing.)  Everynight Wei's spirit would come out after dark and 
spent the night with Pu.  Wei directed Pu to YangZhou.  One night Wei said 
to Pu "Is time for us to part.  You have to send a matchmaker to the Lao
family and asked to marry their daughter and have the bridal party come to
your house at 3a.m. in the morning."  Pu was very upset at losing Wei, but
he loved Wei so much that he decided to follow her advice.

The wedding day had finally come.  The bride was very sick she could hardly
get on her bridal saddle.  On their way to Pu's house the bridal party
passed through a dark wooded road.  The wind started to blow, the moon
disappeared.  A dust cloud got whipped up.  The bridal party dispersed to
find hiding places and waited for the wind to die down.  They left the bride
sitting in the saddle.  The wind came and gone in minutes.  The bridal
party moved on.

The bride arrived at Pu's house.  She stepped out out her saddle.  Covered
up in her red wedding dress, red shoes and a red veil.  The bridal party was 
surprised to find the bride's spirit was holding up.  They thought the wedding 
must have gotten the young lady excited.  The wedding ceremony was finally 
over.  The guest were gone.  The bride and the groom were left in their
beautifully decorated room with red beddings, red candle, and red bed
coverings.  (Chinese use red for celebrations.)  The groom was ever so
excited to unveil his bride.  He carefully used his fan to lift up a corner
of the veil with one hand and held a candle on the other.  He took
a good look at his bride.  He was amazed at how much his bride looked
liked his ghost lover.  He plotted, requested and begged his bride.  She
finally told him that she was Wei, who took the dying body of Lao and came
back to marry Pu.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
P.S. Speaking about movies, can the Japanese netter suggest some Japanese
ghost movies with English subtitles.  I really enjoyed "Stories of the
Four Valley" when I was young.  It's a different kind of horror.  The scenes
of ancient, dead silence with ghost coming back for revenge registered in
my mind.  The spooky atmosphere was very well done.

Selina Glynn
DCIEM Toronto
-- 
	Selina Wong-Glynn, DCIEM, Canadian Forces Base Toronto 
UUCP:	   {decvax|ihnp4|watmath}!utzoo!dciem!dretor!selina
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Internet:  selina@dretor.dciem.dnd.ca
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.ghost-stories