(1) "Set up the Tiles"
There lived an older woman on the fourth floor of a home on Nathan Road. Now, starting early one evening in 1953, this woman began to see the same inexplicable, eerie scene replay itself over and over again every night. Looking out from her home to the fourth-floor home facing hers on Nathan Road, she could see four or five people stirring in the window, sitting at a table, playing mahjong, with one sitting by the window itself, as if on lookout duty. Such a sight in Hong Kong was and is still perfectly normal. What made these nightly gatherings out of the ordinary were two details--the mahjong players were all completely dressed in white, and each was completely headless.
Needless to say, the woman was horrified. She began refusing to roll up her curtain after dusk and completely stayed away from the window.
Residents had probably chalked up the story about the headless mahjong-playing ghosts in white to the woman's perhaps failing eyesight or maybe an urban legend making its rounds through the neighborhood. A few days later, a delivery boy in one of the restaurants had the following tale to tell . . .
(2) "With Money to Burn"
On one occasion, the delivery boy had brought food up to the fourth floor flat, the same locale where an older woman had seen headless spooks. At nine P.M. someone had phoned in the order for food to be sent up--four bowls of rice congee (i.e., gruel or porridge). The door opened a crack without revealing a glimpse of anyone or anything inside, a single hand picked up the bowls of porridge and then took each bowl one-by-one inside. Then came the time to pay the bill. The delivery boy was paid by this single hand, clutching the correct amount of money, appearing from out of the crack in the doorway. The boy took the money and returned to the restaurant.
Once at the restaurant, the delivery boy took out the money for the bowls of rice porridge just delivered and discovered that the bills were not standard Bank of Hong Kong currency; instead, they were "hell notes," money to be burnt for the dead as an offering to the deceased in the world beyond.
Then, the exact same thing happened again the following night when someone at the same address had called in an order for four bowls of rice porridge.
The owner of the restaurant was incensed at these thieves who he thought were using some kind of subterfuge to trick his delivery boy, and he was not one to put up with such chicanery. Something was going on, and the law probably couldn't help, especially since on each occasion, the delivery boy walked away, without complaining, with a payment in his pocket. No, he, the owner, would do something . . .
When the order for four bowls of rice porridge came in the next night, the owner sent a different deliveryman, someone who might be better able to spot a sleight of hand and to deal with any miscreant trying to get away with paying not just fake money but money for the dead. Maybe when getting paid by the hand that appeared from behind the door, the deliveryman this time looked carefully to see if it was legal tender. Perhaps he counted it himself before the door closed. In any case, the deliveryman returned to the restaurant, took out the money he had kept his eyes upon while up on the fourth floor, and . . . saw that he was indeed holding those telltale fake banknotes on cheap yellowed newsprint paper in his hands, the ones with a conspicuous square of foil in the center, the kind of paper no one in his or her right mind would dare to carry around, let alone touch . . . money to be burnt for the dead . . .
fromThen, the exact same thing happened again the following night when someone at the same address had called in an order for four bowls of rice porridge.
The owner of the restaurant was incensed at these thieves who he thought were using some kind of subterfuge to trick his delivery boy, and he was not one to put up with such chicanery. Something was going on, and the law probably couldn't help, especially since on each occasion, the delivery boy walked away, without complaining, with a payment in his pocket. No, he, the owner, would do something . . .
When the order for four bowls of rice porridge came in the next night, the owner sent a different deliveryman, someone who might be better able to spot a sleight of hand and to deal with any miscreant trying to get away with paying not just fake money but money for the dead. Maybe when getting paid by the hand that appeared from behind the door, the deliveryman this time looked carefully to see if it was legal tender. Perhaps he counted it himself before the door closed. In any case, the deliveryman returned to the restaurant, took out the money he had kept his eyes upon while up on the fourth floor, and . . . saw that he was indeed holding those telltale fake banknotes on cheap yellowed newsprint paper in his hands, the ones with a conspicuous square of foil in the center, the kind of paper no one in his or her right mind would dare to carry around, let alone touch . . . money to be burnt for the dead . . .
(3) "A Sealed-up Unit"
The restaurant owner notified the police, and some officers were sent to the apartment that very night. By now a crowd of over one thousand onlookers, with newspaper reporters in attendance, gathered below to watch whatever unfolded.
The police officers went to the apartment of the woman who lived directly across from the fourth-floor flat, and, as witnessed by the police officers and civilians, four human figures in white, without heads, could be seen in the window, sitting around a mahjong table, playing mahjong. From the beginning to the end of this incident, no officer dared to enter the haunted apartment. The whole affair finally came to a conclusion when the policemen had the front door to the place sealed.
In time, the building itself was demolished to make way for a new structure.
(4) Another Version
A reporter wrote there had once indeed been live humans having a mahjong party upstairs in the fourth-floor flat. The owner's daughter was having some friends over for a friendly game one evening. Everything was going well; all were merry, enjoying themselves. When it was time to order some refreshments, the players remained seated in their places around the table and each stuck a hand out with some coins to pay for his or her portion of late-night snacks. From out of nowhere, a fifth outstretched hand and arm appeared . . .
Those at the table bolted out the door. The police were notified. Later, it came out that several people, including those who had called the police, had simply vanished, whereabouts unknown.
And what of this location now? There's a different building there, one housing a bookstore.
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A bowl of rice porridge is a favorite late-night meal of gamblers. The fourth floor is interesting; the pronunciation of "four" in many Chinese dialects (Mandarin, Cantonese and Hokkien/Taiwanese included) sounds like "death," a word to be avoided during felicitous times, such as New Year. White is the color of mourning. The motif of money offered by a ghost which is then inexplicably transformed into the money for the dead is not unknown. One of the most famous Taiwanese ghost stories, "Lin Toujie" 林投姐, the story of an avenging spirit, also has this motif. In at least one version, the female ghost buys something from a vendor, maybe a rice cake, and pays with what seems to be good money. She disappears or otherwise goes off with the food, and the hapless vendor discovers he or she now has a fistful of money for the dead. Such an interaction with the dead, resulting in a physical memento of the occurrence, would be, of course, bad luck. But then again, in Chinese lore, ghosts are just about always bad luck.
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