Note: Transcript fully created by automated AI
[00:00:00] Jesse Lin: Hi everyone. I’m Jesse Lin.
[00:00:03] Angela Lin: And I’m Angela Lin. Welcome back to a very Halloween new episode, spooky
[00:00:09] Jesse Lin: dooky. Spooky,
[00:00:10] Angela Lin: um, of, but where are you really from? Podcast. Anyways, as we have failed, a little bit to introduce. Today’s is celebrating Halloween. and we are doing something fun and different. We are going, we each dug through the slums of Reddit to find one story that has, that takes place in Asia, but like one scary story that has something to do with Asia, um, to celebrate.
So if scary stories aren’t your jam, probably just skip this episode, . But if you’re down for it, listen in. And since I’m the one who is more woo woo, , gonna lay a few ground rules before we start. Oh. So first, um, check it out. I’m, uh, I lit some incense. There was a whole kerfuffle with my parents to get this lit right before we started recording, but I am.
I’m cleansing the space, making sure no negative energies are being attracted. I also have my crystal that’s, um, trying to cleanse energy and because I listen to Ghost Podcast thingies, I will just do a little fail safe, uh, statement right here that we do not invite any negative energies or entities to attach themselves to us or.
Listening to this. So go away. Go away if you are not positive and loving energy. Goodbye. Thank you. Word. Okay. That’s all . And with that we’ll share some stories. ,
[00:01:49] Jesse Lin: I can, I can go first. I dug this story out of our new sleep, and the title is We Went On Vacation to Japan. I Wish We never did. If you’re planning to go on VA on vacation soon, please read this story.
We’ve made a mistake of trying to be adventurous and it costs more than we thought it ever. My name is, my name is Na Liam. I’m 18 years old. I’m not 18 years old. I work part-time jobs ever since I got into high school to be able to afford a vacation before going to college. The reason I wanted to do this was because once I left for college, I’d be either stuck in my room studying or going to low budget college parties, neither of which sounded great.
Three of my best friends from high school also had the same idea. A small Asian guy named Seth. His parents immigrated to America from Japan. One of the. That I thought I would never have. Sarah, she was a Caucasians daddy girl. She was spoiled and always got what she wanted and a tall black guy named JJ who was chill and loved to crack jokes to make people laugh.
The four of us decided we wanted to go on a vacation together. It would cost us less and we could spend more time with each other before we went our separate ways. We all agreed and after we graduated, we booked tickets for a flight to Japan on Friday morning. We spent the next couple of days packing up our stuff and JJ said he had some camping equipment we can take there just in case we decided to go camping.
When Friday morning came, we were all waiting in the airport excited to. On a vacation and explore. Next day, we woke up feeling refreshed and ready for a day of exploration. We were at one of the street food vendors that sold deo when we decided to ask if there were any interesting locations for camping.
He said there was a forest known for people committing suicide in it. The name was, oh, no, . I, I’m gonna butcher this El. But he told us we weren’t allowed to camp in there. Only visit for tours. Being dumb and adventurous teenagers that we were, we decided we’d go there camping, not our first time, breaking the rules, and we would find a nice, secluded spot in there so that no one would bother us or even know that we were there.
We got there as it started getting dark and we quickly made a fire and set up our tents in which we were going to sleep. Next couple of hours we spent talking, drinking, generally having fun. We shared scary stories. We came upon in our life and soon the time came for us to go to bed. We put out the fire and I got my swing back and dozed off.
I woke up in the middle of the night as I wrote my eyes. I decided to see what time it was. The clock read, 2:48 AM and I realized I needed to pee really badly as I left my tent and made my way deeper into the woods. I thought I saw a figure of a person, but as I blinked again, it was gone. I shrugged it off as me being hungover and just saying things.
I finished my business, made my way back to the tent. I fell asleep and once again, I was awoken this time, but I could hear something. It sounded like a muffled voice speaking in Japanese. Nope, thinking it was Seth speaking with a park ranger or something. I got out of my tent and I could see Seth at the edge of the forest.
Based on his posture, I figured he wasn’t peeing, so I thought he may have been sleepwalking. As I approached him, the voice became more loud and clear, indicating that it was indeed sad. Hey man, what are you up to? As I moved a few steps to forward, he turned towards me in a speed I never thought was possible.
I think he jerked his hands really quick, which replaced on the left side of his abdomen as he let out a groan. , are you okay? I said moving towards him. That’s when I noticed what he was actually doing. He plunged our survival knife deep into his abdomen. He looked at me with a satisfying expression as he slid the knife horizontally across his abdomen.
I was frozen in fear, standing still as my friend bled out in front of me. After I gained some control of my body, I screamed. My lungs burned as I screamed again and. , JJ and Sarah woke up to see what was happening, and once they saw Seth, they too screamed at the top of their lungs. We need to get the fuck out of here.
I said, as I ran back to our camp to pack our stuff up, not even 10 seconds into the packing, I could hear JJ scream, no, Sarah, where the fuck are you going? He yelled, and as I turned my head, I could see Sarah running into the woods. Fuck, we need to go after her. We can’t leave her in this forest alone. I exclaimed nodding my.
To the direction in which she ran. JJ just nodded his head as we ran after her adrenaline pumping in our veins. We ran like that for five minutes until we saw Sarah climbing a tree already, almost at the top. Sarah, get down, please. You don’t want to do this. I said, with worry and panic enveloping me as she climbed the tree.
She looked at me and JJ once again with a. And the look of satisfaction on her face as she let herself fall down on top of her head. The sound of bones snapping as her body fell limp and lifeless. We didn’t say anything. We simply looked at the ground for five minutes, 10 minutes. I’m not even sure how long we just sat there, our gaze meeting the ground beneath us.
As we were looking down, JJ pulled out a knife, which was already covered with Seth’s. . I didn’t even try to stop him. No, come on. I was waiting for him to do it so I can have my turn. Just as he was about to pierce his abdomen, a figure emerged from the bushes next to us and shoved jj, who in turn dropped the knife.
The man said something Japanese as he picked JJ up and made a gesture for us to follow him, and we did. We followed him back to what we assumed was. He made us some tea as he started to speak. How many? How many have passed? The man said Pointly. Me and JJ looked at each other as we said two. In unison.
This forest makes people want to end their lives. It’s not known for suicides, for no reason. Every time someone spends more than six hours in the forest, the forest makes them commit suicide. He paused meeting our Gs to make sure we were still. The reason it does this is because there was a tribe living here hundreds of years ago after they were defeated and about to be wiped out.
Their shaman put a curse on the, for us, making anyone who stayed there for prolonged periods of time and their own life. He said, as me and JJ looked at each other and finished our tea, I suggest you leave now. Leave to wherever you came from and don’t. He said as he got us back to town, it was already done at this point.
When we got back, me and JJ packed our stuff, got a refund from the hotel for the next two nights and got on a flight back home. We didn’t daresay a word to the police and we didn’t wanna stay in that cursed place any longer. Two weeks have passed since that in incident, and I just gotten used that JJ committed suicide as I’m sitting here about to post this with a gun in my right.
It doesn’t seem like such a bad idea. Uh, you
[00:08:24] Angela Lin: came, uh, guns of Lazen with this story, didn’t you? What ? Yeah. A scary story. I know. Well, that was fucking like, whoa. Well, okay. I have so many thoughts about this one because, uh, as you know, I’m like a big horror buff and you’re going to Japan. We lived in Japan previously and we’re going to Japan again soon.
I. Forest Well or the legend behind this forest? Well, I didn’t know the thing about the tribe and the shaman curse. I dunno. That may not be
[00:08:55] Jesse Lin: real, honestly. Maybe it’s true.
[00:08:57] Angela Lin: Yeah, maybe it’s not. Not sure. But Suicide forest is very famous and something that not everyone knows is like where it’s located is so kind of shocking to me.
It’s at the base of Mount Fuji. Hmm. , like, that’s so shocking to me because Mount Fuji is such a, like, symbol of Japan and it’s like a beautiful like, kind of like peaceful thing. And we know that ev, you know, one of the like main things people like to do that are active, um, for Japan vacations is to like hike Mount Fuji.
So it’s just like kind of crazy to me that there’s this like really oin. Stark thing that’s like at the base of such a popular destination. Um, but yeah, don’t go to suicide Forest, y’all. No.
[00:09:42] Jesse Lin: Don’t do that shit. Well, you’ve, well, you’ve been there, right? Like you’ve hiked that area. No, no, no. Not suicide.
Forest. You’ve been in Mount Fuji, right? ,
[00:09:49] Angela Lin: uh, no, we didn’t go to Mount Fuji. We went to there. There’s an area, um, called Coya Sun, which has like five lakes and it. , um, perfect view of Mount Fuji, but it’s not at Mount Fuji. We have been near Fuji and Ramon tried to persuade me pretty hard to go to this theme park that’s at the base of Mount Fuji, like close to suicide forest, and they have the world’s longest haunted.
Oh word in that theme. My god, that’s in an abandoned hospital. Like so fun, insane asylum. It’s a two hour hunt house, dude. No, I’m not doing that. I guess what? And Japanese people are like the masters. Masters of horror. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, goodbye. Like I watched a trailer for it and it’s literally people like shooting out of the emergency exits, being like, I can’t take this anymore.
[00:10:46] Jesse Lin: That is a, a really long time. Yeah, dude. No, I, I’m guessing it’s probably there because it’s not as accessible maybe, or I don’t know. But there’s also, I feel like there’s also this thing where it’s like once a place has that kind of like reputation, it like draws people to it. Whether it’s like a uie, spooky, woo boo power of it, or it’s just like people.
you know, they know of it and they’re like, you know what, I’m just gonna, it’s top of mind. I’m gonna go here and do it.
[00:11:14] Angela Lin: Totally. Yeah. It’s like self-fulfilling prophecies in a lot of ways, right? Yeah. Yeah. Hey listeners, wondering how you can support us. The biggest way is by increasing our visibility by following us on Instagram at where are you from?
Pod on TikTok at, but where are you really from? Subscribing to our YouTube channel Under, but where are you really? From podcast rating and reviewing us on Apple Podcasts and telling your friends, the more people we can get to listen to the show, the more we can continue spotlighting different perspectives and.
And if you feel so inclined, we’re also accepting donations at buy me a coffee.com/where are you from? Thanks y’all. Now. Okay, well, , mine’s not light per se, but compared to that, I’d say mine’s fairly light . Sorry. Um, all good. So I dug through this shit to find something based in Taiwan. The poster’s name is Horn Ivory.
Okay, so this person posted four years ago. Okay? And this is called. Weird things are happening to my apartment in Taipei. I’ve been living in Taipei for two months so far, and until last week, everything had been going great. I was fresh out of college and managed to get a job as an English teacher in a foreign city.
The food here is fantastic and cheap, and the people are all very friendly. The job came to me with pretty short notice, so I had to get an apartment in short. . I still manage to find an apartment in the shooting district where the school I work at is located, but it is a pretty old and shabby apartment.
But the rent was low and the location was great for me to get to work so I wasn’t too picky and put my newly minted seal on the lease. I hadn’t done much to the apartment since arriving and had basically still been living out of my luggage using the place only to sleep and shower. My apartment was on the third floor of an old block sandwich between a bicycle repair shop and an empty building that didn’t have any signboards put up.
The inside of my apartment wasn’t much better either. The floor of the apartment was tiled with tiles that were probably white. And the landlord provided some furniture. There was a table with a single rickety wooden chair, a bed frame without a mattress. I had to buy that myself, a cupboard and a closet that I didn’t get around to using for the first two months.
There was also a whole collection of dented metal walks in the kitchen that I have no clue how to use. I can tell that the landlord tried to clean up the main areas of the apartment, so most of the living spaces in the tiny kitchen were free of dirt and dust, but all the nooks and crannies under the cupboards, behind the closet and under the sink were all really dirty.
Then last weekend I decided to clean the apartment and get my house life in order. I really regret that decision. I bought a broom mop and cleaning agents from the supermarket nearby. Taipei is really convenient and there is one of everything within walking distance. Stripped down to a comfy pair of shorts and t-shirt and got working on my apartment.
I scrubbed the stains off the walls and dusted the cupboard in the closet. I wiped the windows as best I could, so they were mostly transparent. Again, I got all the dust out of the lights and the place became twice. I stripped off the yellowing calendar and other likewise, yellowing decorations pasted on the wall.
There were some old newspapers and expired canned food in the kitchen cabinets, which I threw away. Some really old clothes that were basically rags were also left on top of the closet collecting dust. These I also dumped. It took me the entire morning and afternoon before I managed to get the place into a habitable state.
I must have used dozens of buckets of water. It was unbelievable how hard I was to clean the apartment, even though it was so small, or maybe I just wasn’t used to cleaning anything. Then that night, the nightmares started. I dreamed that there was a woman sitting at the foot of my bed looking at me. She was dressed in red, and I couldn’t see her face from the dim streetlights shining through the drawn curtains of my window.
She sat very still and never moved. I couldn’t move or make a sound either. This doesn’t sound so scary as far as nightmares go. There were no monsters, no ghosts, no demons, just a woman sitting in the dim light. But the nightmare lasted for hours and hours, and I was conscious for every minute of it frozen, paralyzed as this woman stared at me and I was unable to do anything about it.
There are no sounds coming from outside the apartment, nothing. . Usually things happen really quickly. In my dreams, I’d always be doing something, never had. I had a dream that was so, still so quiet with nothing except a single woman dressed in red, looking at me in my dream. I closed my eyes, so I didn’t need to look at her, but every time I opened my eyes again, she would always be there, and the dream refused to end in the end.
I stopped trying to close my eyes and wish her away, and just waited as the hours slowly passed. I was only suddenly wrenched out of my dream when my alarm rang. One moment I was in the dark with a woman, and the next I was gasping, awake, my pajamas in the bedsheet soaked with my sweat. I also realized that I’d wet my bed, but I was too shaken to have been embarrassed.
This nightmare happened again the next day, and then the next, and I stopped trying to go to sleep in my apartment after work ended up 5:00 PM On the fourth day, I went to the staff restroom and took a long nap on the. . The nap lasted four hours and it was nighttime. By the time I woke up, I had no dreams and slept soundly.
I was so relieved. I actually shed a few tears back in my apartment. I turned up all the lights and settled down to a big mug of really strong coffee. It was instant coffee, and I must have poured in three times as many scoops as I normally do, but I was determined not to go to sleep. I sat in my chair instead and alternated between reading my basic Chinese textbook.
I’m still a beginner at the language and watching YouTube videos. My strategy was going really well until sometime near midnight. Suddenly I smelled really heavy perfume in the air. It was a mix of jasmine and roses and smelled like someone came into my apartment and emptied an entire bottle of rosewater and perfume into it.
I got up from the chair and tried to investigate where the smell was coming. All my windows were closed, so it wasn’t from outside. Maybe it was coming from outside and seeping in from under the door. The entire apartment was permeated with it, and the flower scent was getting very un overbearing.
Suddenly I found myself in the nightmare again. I can’t explain how it happened. One moment I was looking around my very brightly lit apartment, and the next moment I found myself in the dark on my bed being stared at by a woman whose face I couldn’t. I was petrified. I thought I had finally beaten the nightmare.
I wanted to cry. Why was this happening to me? What did I do so wrong to deserve this? But the sobs couldn’t come out of my closed mouth, and the tears just slowly slid down my face from my eyes. The nightmare lasted for hours, just like the previous nights, and I was only wrenched awake by the sound of my alarm from my phone.
I was in bed even though I didn’t remember getting into bed that night. Thank God I had remembered to plug the phone in last night to. I shuddered to think what would’ve happened if my battery had died? Would I not have woken up from the night? This gave me an idea. The next day I slept at the office again and drank three cups of the double espressos from the 24 7 convenience store near my apartment.
I wasn’t joking when I said that there was one of everything within walking distance in Taipei. Then I took out my phone and set my alarm, all my alarms. . I set an alarm for every half hour between 10:00 PM and 8:00 AM. If the alarm was the antidote to the nightmares, then I’d just have to forcibly wrench me out of the nightmares instead of having to wait for hours before it ends.
I grew really nervous as midnight drew closer and put on a really loud YouTube comedy playlist on my computer to prevent myself from falling. Then I suddenly smell the heavy scent of flowers, permeate my apartment again. But this time I felt prepared. This time I felt like I had beaten the game. I found myself suddenly in the nightmare again, in the dark, on my bed with a woman sitting at the foot of my bed.
But even though I still couldn’t move, I was almost smug. I stared right back at her as though challenging her. I was going to beat this night. Then something happened that made all my confidence and bravado evaporate. It was such a simple thing to do, but I didn’t think it was possible for her to do it.
She moved, she tilted her head, so the lower half of her face was lit up in the dim light, and she smiled. Her thin lips curled up into a slight smile. As she continued staring at me, I was terrified all over again and waited for the lay alarm to bring me out of the nightmare, but it never. . I waited for hours and hours in the dark watching her as she smiled at me, and the alarm didn’t come just as I thought I was going to go crazy from fright.
I was suddenly wrenched out of the nightmare by the sound of my phone’s alarm. I was lying in my bed again, but in the waking world, with all my apartment lights turned on and the comedy video blaring out of my computer, I was so relieved. I was so glad that I didn’t notice how something was off. It was only when I turned off my phone’s alarm that I noticed the.
12:30 AM All that time, all those hours I spent terrified in. My nightmare was only half an hour in the waking world. I broke down in tears, finally able to sob. I only snapped out of my sobbing when I noticed that the smell of roses and Jasmine was gathering in the air again, and I panicked. No, not again.
Not so soon. I grabbed my keys wallet and phone and dashed out of the a. I left the YouTube videos blaring in my room as I quickly descended the dusty flights of stairs and went down to the empty street. I first headed to the 24 7 convenience store and spent about half an hour there staring at the cup, noodles and rows of drinks to calm my nerves.
That cashier seemed a bit su suspicious of me for spending so long in the store, but I didn’t care. I bought a u SB phone charger at the store because I left mine at the apartment and I was not going back there. Another couple of double shot espresso and searched for a nearby hourly hotel on my phone.
I found one within walking distance and stayed there for the night with the lights turned. It is finally the weekend again, but I do not dare go back to my apartment. I bought new clothes and I’m living at a hotel instead. I’m in the hotel room right now typing this, trying to see if anyone has any answers and suggestions for what to do, should I see a psychiatrist, but I slept normally in my office and in the hotel, so I can’t have anything to do with me.
It’s only my a. Did I do anything wrong? When I cleaned my apartment, did I disturb something in my apartment as I was scrubbing the nooks and crannies? Maybe I threw something away that I was not supposed to. I’m trying to remember everything I got rid of and nothing seems important. There was a whole stack of newspapers that were at least five years old.
The one on top was from the year 99, and I know that Taiwan starts counting. Its years from 1912. I can barely read Chinese, so I didn’t know what the newspaper headlines were. Maybe they were important. . The calendar and decorations were old too. The calendar was for the year 1 0 2, which is four years ago, and I was and was only half used up, and there were some small pieces of calligraphy on very yellowed paper that were glued so firmly.
I had to rip them in order to get them off the walls. The old clothes were really tattered, but their fit was for a man’s clothes and not a woman’s. They were just plain gray shirts that were mothy and covered in. I didn’t think twice when I threw them away. Maybe I shouldn’t have. I couldn’t tell what was in the old cans of food I dumped because I didn’t reach Chinese, but they had pictures of beans on them and had expired more than a year ago.
Honestly, what else was I supposed to do with them? I left a message from my landlord, but he hasn’t replied yet. Maybe I ought to find another apartment and have someone else pack up my things and bring them to me. I just hope the nightmares don’t follow me. I don’t know what to do right now. What’s my best?
So that’s the end of the story, and I will read one person’s comment that I think is a fair assessment of what’s happening. The yellow decorations are not decoration, but some sort of seals to ward off something, and then someone else commented, yeah, what that guy said, and she’s dressed in red, which is like the worst kind of Chinese ghost to encounter because they’ve died a wrongful death and have become vengeful.
As a result, you should go to a temple or church immediately and ask for. Oh shit. .
[00:23:49] Jesse Lin: Did you ever watch this show? There’s a, an online show on Paramount Plus called Evil, and it’s basically like, okay, so basically at every episode they explore a case that is brought to the Catholic church and it’s considered a supernatural case, but they hired a staff psychologist to interrogate those cases to see if they’re like a, a real like, Scientific explanation for some of the things.
And each episode ends kind of like inconclusively. Like it’s always like, uh, you can’t really tell. And I would like to, I would like to offer, you know, those buildings are really old. My aunt lives in one of them, and it is highly questionable what is in the build materials. And I would say that if you like deep clean something like.
It’s possible you can disturb asbestos, paint, lead, paint, mold, all those kinds of things that can cause like really vivid like hallucinations and like crazy experiences. , but you can’t prove that unless you test for it. So, but yeah, that is
[00:24:55] Angela Lin: like, that’s always on the opposite side of the woowoo spectrum.
Going all sciencey over here. But I definitely agree with the commenter. I think the thing, the what she called yellowed paper with calligraphy on them that wears glued so hard into the wall. Definitely. I feel like those were supposed to be, my God, be like warding away the equal and then she ripped it.
Um, sorry y’all, this was not meant to be as long as it was, but I feel like both our stories were really interesting. Yeah. So. Hope you got scared, but stay safe, spooked, and positive. Um, yeah, so that’s what we wanted to cover in today’s Halloween special. And to wrap it up, we’re throwing it back to you and, uh, we wanna hear from you in the comments.
What is your closest. Or scariest, supernatural or unexplainable experience that you’ve had in your life, or maybe you have a friend of a friend or something, something really spooky that’s happened to you or somebody else that you know, drop it in the comments cuz it’s spooky season. You’ll and come back next week cuz we’ll have another episode for you then.