Young People Ghost’s Story in Hong Kong essay

Young People Ghost’s Story in Hong Kong

Since the end of the XIX century, researchers, working in area of psyche, parapsychologists and representatives of other branches of science devoted many efforts to the study of ghosts. It was collected and analyzed information on tens of thousands of cases. Researches put forward a variety of different theories for explanation of these phenomena, but, however, information is still very fragmented. Thus, I would like to discuss the article Young People Ghost’s Story in Hong Kong written by Joseph Bosco and summarize its content in this paper.

First of all it is necessary to mention that Joseph Bosco is Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and his research on ghost themes greatly interested me. Joseph Bosco offered his own point of view in regard to ghosts and their influence on students’ life. Bosco’s article consists of several parts and each part describes ghosts from different positions. For example, in the beginning of the article Bosco pay our attention on fact that all students in Hong Kong know many stories about ghosts and these stories were even printed in the New Asia College 2001 Orientation Camp Booklet. It will be wrong to say that all students believe in ghosts, but the true is in fact that all students know stories about ghosts and older students try to scare newcomers with them in year to year.

It is necessary to emphasize that students use varieties of stories to scare each other and sometimes such stories even considered “compulsory” component at the Chinese University of Hong Kong during orientation programs (known as Orientation Camp or O’Camp). Thinking about the most widespread stories we could name five of them. The first one is Single Braid, the second is Oxtail Soup, the third is The Lotus Pond, the next story is called The Little Finger and the last one ”“ Room 111. Each story is short and seems ordinary for me, but Bosco analyzed them from different points and this analysis shows their deep structure and really symbolic meaning.

Reading the article I was interested in fact why Chinese students like stories about the ghosts and why they afraid ghosts so much. Basing on Bosco’s research I came to the conclusion that the concept of “ghost” summarizes the entire class of phenomena that have, apparently a different origin. According to different sources of information, ghosts, having similarities with the man, are often credited with the ability to speak with witnesses, sometimes even portend the future. We can find reports of ghosts, leaving footprints, drawing or writing on subjects, and sometimes even able to attack people, cause them physical damage or even kill. To the acknowledgement of the last preposition we can use the story The Lotus Pond where the girl asks time and if the boy answers 10:00 she takes him in the pond.