In an abandoned village deep in the Chinese mountains, there are legends that people never leave the Fengmen Village, not even after death. Because of the bad Feng Shui and strange customs it has become the country’s number one ghost village, some would even say cursed.
Deep in the forested Taihang Mountains outside of Qingyang city in the Henan Province, there is a mysterious Village now abandoned Fengmen Village. Dead Fengmen Village in most English sources. With its strange customs, people that have visited it, have come back with stories about something strange, and perhaps even evil. Some have not made it back from the village at all.
Why is the place abandoned? Legend says it was abandoned overnight and that the inhabitants were taken away by ghosts. Legend says a lot of things, but what really happened when the village became a Ghost village?
The Strange Customs of a Secluded Place
The entrance to the village is difficult to find and when entering it a feeling of dread comes to you because of the anti Feng Shui of the place. The place is filled with a heavy sense of Yin and this is what many claim makes this place so haunted.
In Chinese lore, ghosts have a hard time getting out of places with a heavy Yin, and many claim this is why this village is said to be so haunted. In addition, the village is built like a maze, and the ghosts are trapped, unable to wander out from it and move on.
Strange customs are what seems to be worshiping mysterious two figures. Two statues that are no Gods like Buddha or the like, but rather seem to be of two normal people are found in the nearby temple. Who these two idol statues were they haven’t been able to figure out. There is a theory that it is actually that of ghosts and that the famed ghost village actually worshiped these ghosts.
There are also strange burial customs that completely differ from the surrounding area and Han people. The corpses in Fengmen Village are buried with masks and it was said that people would not leave the village, even after death as the dead would be buried close to the home of the deceased. It is said that is why the people in Fengmen Village wore masks, as it was meant to suppress ghosts.
Haunting Tales from Hikers
Over the years as the village population dwindled and hiking became more popular, many hikers decided to make their destination this strange and remote village. Some hikers have claimed to have called out their names into the dark night as they were camped outside the now abandoned village, and to their surprise, something called their names back.
Travelers faint or feverish when they step into the village and wake up with scratches all over their body they have no idea where it came from.
People that choose to travel to this far away place come back and tell of unusual noises and shouts can be heard and there is no phone reception to call for help when needing it.
The Haunted Taishi Chair
Fengmen Village has over a hundred houses of Ming and Qing styled architecture, and are today mostly empty, covered only by cobweb and dust. There is one house however that became more talked about than others because of the mysterious chair that was placed there, said to be clean, as if someone sits on it regularly.
The chair is a Qing Dynasty Taishi chair placed in the living room in one of the houses facing north-south as the Feng Shui tradition would have it. The legend is that people that have sat in it, have died under strange circumstances or encountered something supernatural.
According to legend the grand master chair is not for the living to sit on, but for ghosts. It is also said that if a living man sits on it, he will be unable to find a wife, and if its a woman, she will not be able to have children.
The Legend of the Pillow Ghost
One of the more well known legends of the place comes from the story of three young men who visited the Fengmen Village in 1963. It is worth noting that this story started circulating on various internet forums after the village became deserted and has yet to be confirmed.
In 1963, three young people from Zhengzhou came to Fengmen Village to paint. Before entering the village they saw a pillow in the middle of the road and they kicked it aside. They were just in time for the funeral held in the village where a family of three had died of a high fever .
The three men were placed in the deceased family’s house to sleep. And although they found it a bit creepy, they didn’t want to offend the village or admit to being scared. After they moved in, strange things happened again and again. They often heard children calling out for their mom in the middle of the night, but when they went out to see, there was no one around the house.
The three med also had the same nightmare of a ghost climbing into bed in the middle of the night. One day, one of them opened the closet to look for clothes during the day, and suddenly screamed and passed out. After waking up, he said that he saw a face hidden behind the clothes in the closet, which was exactly the same as the face in his dream. When they searched the closet, they found nothing suspicious, but the following night, the one who had seen it developed a high fever.
The next day one of them dreamed of the ghost face again. When he woke up, he heard the sound of splashing water in the yard outside, so he looked out the window. Under the moonlight, he saw the back of a woman standing naked in the well in the yard. Suddenly the woman turned her head, gave him a strange smile, and jumped into the well.
When they searched the well with flashlights, the water in the well was calm with no ripples and the stone platform by the well was dry. After this, the man often dreamed of the woman who jumped into the water and also developed a high fever.
The third young man was very anxious about his friends developing high fevers, but it was far from a doctor. One night he also started dreaming about the ghost face and he could not breathe. When he woke up, he found that one of his friends was on top of him, strangling him. Fortunately, the third man came to rescue. After that, the three people finally realized the evil nature of living in this house, and hurried to find the elders in the village. The elder in the village asked the three if they had done anything against the village customs.
The young man said that he had been respectful since entering the village, not even thinking about the pillow they had kicked out of the way before entering it. The elder slaughtered a chicken and prayed in front of the enshrined stone statue and the grave of the family of three that originally had owned the house. After that, their fever gradually subsided, and the nightmare gradually disappeared.
So why was the house haunted? Many claim it was because of the burial customs, where the family were buried by the house, and therefore bound by it, returning home each night unable to find their way out from the village.
The True Story Behind Fengmen Village
Stories about the supposedly haunted ghost village of Fengmen Village have gone around the internet the last decade, and made it into the list of some of the more haunted places in China. It has been made into more than one horror movie, especially the movie from 2014 garnered much attention, further fueling the haunted rumors of the abandoned mountain village.
It is now known as the number one ghost village in the country, but what are the legends coming from this place, and how much of it is true?
What Does Fengmen Village mean?
The name Fengmen Village has been written in Chinese like 封門村, meaning Closed Door, leading to more legends than the correct spelling 風門村, meaning Wind Door. Even on military maps from 1972 it is written with the wrong spelling.
The true origin of the name of wind door was often given to places with a rather dangerous geographical location and from a military standpoint, easy to defend, but rather difficult to attack.
The name of the village when the incorrect spelling gave people association of something sealed, secretive and started speculating about something evil concealed inside of the deserted mountain village.
The Strange Worshiping of Ghosts
As for the strange idols the village seems to have worshiped it is unclear just what it was, but more than likely there could have been some form of ancestral worship rather than straight up a ghost as the legends would have it. The clothing of the statues seems to be of a woman and man from the Ming Dynasty though. It could also be modeled after some real people that did something significant for the village. Today it is unclear.
The Bad Feng Shui
Some of the suspicion and eeriness to the village is their complete disregard for the Feng Shui of the buildings. According to legends, most of the houses face east-west, the complete opposite of Feng Shui, leading some people to think this is the reason why the place is so off and strange stuff is happening here.
When actually looking at the almost 200 houses though, not all are facing the wrong way according to Feng Shui. Being built in the steep mountains, they had to use the natural layout of the landscape to build the houses compared to flatter terrain with more room for Feng Shui rules.
Why did People Abandon Fengmen Village?
So why is the village now abandoned? In contrast to the legend where the people just disappeared overnight, the abandonment from the village happened gradually. From 1981, the state arranged a collective relocation of villages like Fengmen Village and people started leaving the village and moving to the bigger cities, and by 2007, there was no one living in the old village anymore. Why?
Could it be because of the haunted rumors and the legends of bad Feng Shui? Perhaps it was due to more logical causes, like the dwindling water resources from the mountain, the inaccessible roads to schools and the rest of society.
The village had relied on traditional farm life, and with the dwindling water resources, they were no longer able to sustain their crops and had to search elsewhere for other sources of income.
During the many wars the territory faced, the accessibility of the place was seen as paradise, but it turned to its curse in modern times because of how hard it was to reach the remote place as it is a two hour hike through the mountain.
The Remains of the Ghost Village
After the village became abandoned for life, people started coming there to see the ghost town and have a look for themselves if the rumors were really true. And in the following years, live streams in the ghost village, explorers and new legends started spreading on the internet.
Today the ghost village is slowly receding back to nature, as the trash hikers leave behind is piling up, covering the last remains of the secluded town that used to do things in its own way.
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References:
風門村_百度百科
https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hant/%E5%B0%81%E9%97%A8%E6%9D%91
河南封门村为何会人称为“中国第一鬼村”？它有多神秘？
https://new.qq.com/rain/a/20201103a07ux500
行政區劃中的封門村位於河南省焦作市沁陽市王屋山鄉
How mysterious is China’s first ghost village “Fengmen Village”?The anchor runs into the ghost village at night, and calls the police for help late at night
