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Date: April 16-Oct 22－6:30 pm
Venue: Newman Tours
Price: 160-390 yuan
While it's usually pretty good being shielded from the consumerist frenzy and sugar rush that surrounds Halloween in the West, there's no reason to miss out completely on your fiendish fix. Try Newman Tours' nighttime ghost walk near Houhai for your share of scares, especially on Saturday 31 itself. It's shocking how much you can learn while being scared. From the outset you're put on edge by the guide checking how you got to the meeting point and telling you a ghost story relevant to that means of transport. It really kicks in on your way back home, so take a (brave) friend.
Without giving too much away, we learn why zombies in China bounce and how this was used in the 1800s as a way to smuggle opium around the country (clue: it involves Daoist monks). There may have been some props, which may have made the tour a multi-sensory adventure, and they certainly help add context. The guide may even have deliberately tried to scare us at times. There are also plenty of fascinating historical tales along the way. For example, the one about Empress Dowager Cixi instructing her eunuch Li Lianying to drown the Guangxu Emperor's favorite mistress, the Pearl Concubine, in a well in the Forbidden City.
When her family petitioned for her body to be returned, she was brought up from the well a month later, but her skin was still perfectly pristine. The eunuch later poisoned the emperor with arsenic, but, like with all good stories, came to a grisly end himself. We'll say no more. These incidents might be recorded in history, but the whole ghostly dimension has subsequently formed and developed devilishly. In fact, as the tour is all within what was the Imperial City, it's generally a better class of ghosts you'll be hearing about. None of the lonely old washerwoman claptrap, thank goodness.
It's not all nasty though－there's the dutiful ghost of the heroic People's Liberation Army soldier who died saving students who'd fallen through the ice on Houhai lake. Apparently he's looking over all those who take to their skates on the lake today. Don't leave going on this tour too late－Beijing's old and haunted architecture is always under threat of demolition. There are plans to pull down the city's most haunted house, known as 81 Chaonei Dajie. This baroque French mansion was once a hospital and church, so is a veritable breeding ground for the living dead.
Along the way you get to see details of areas you've probably taken for granted by now, as well as others you've always meant to get around to like Prince Gong's Mansion. And as the topic is so niche, a lot of the content will be new stuff to most, so it's suitable for new arrivals or old timers alike. Be warned, however: after hearing about what's happened on these familiar streets, you may never look at hutong the same way again. Meet at Exit B of Beihaibei subway station. Private tours can be arranged, and there's an extended two-and-a-half hour select version with extra thrills. On Saturday 31, for Halloween, the public tour will be upgraded to the Select version at no extra cost. Advance booking only.
Contact: 138-1777-0229
