Circling Chinese Bride

Witness: Lijian
Location: Shandong, China
Date of Encounter: May 1949

My father was in the army and stationed in a small town in 1949. We were assigned to live with local people. I was three years old and slept on the same bed with my maid and a local old woman.

One night I woke up around 2 AM and could not fall asleep again. I heard the door creak open and looked towards the door. A tiny girl about five feet tall walked into the room — she was wearing bright red clothes. There was hardly any furniture in the room, and the bed was placed along the wall. When she reached the center of the room, she began to walk in circles repeatedly, then she turned back and disappeared outside the door.

The next day I told my parents, they thought I was lying and asked the maid to stay awake and watch. The maid and the old woman stayed awake as asked. At around the same time, the little red girl came in as she did the previous night and did the same thing. After she left, I asked my maid and the old woman, they all insisted they saw nothing and they were sincere. My father was worried because he thought the enemy might plot something against the army.

The old woman then mentioned to my father that years ago, a bride hanged herself on the tree in the courtyard right outside the room where we slept. She was forced to marry to a man much older than she was, but he was rich. The bride, of course, as Chinese tradition, was wearing bright red clothes.