The Night of the Lady By The Stairs

The registration thing went better than I thought, better, as in they didn't ask me any questions, and there I was trying to think up of questions they might ask, and what I should reply, oh the anxiety over nothing. Just glad that's over, I might have been a bit paranoid, but better safe than unprepared.

Talking about residing in China, I suddenly remember my scariest experience. I used to live with two other friends from school. We lived in one of those cheap“lou fang” right in the city. If you've ever looked for a place to live in Beijing you could probably guess then what my house looked like judging from my mention of“cheap" and“in the city center.” For those of you who don't, well in Beijing the closer your place is to the center of the city, or around the third ring road, the more expensive the apartments are. Choosing something old and ugly will decrease the price, especially if it's one of those places that's just waiting to be torn down. We were actually living in one of those cheap, old, paint-running-down-the-wall, no lights on outside type of places. It was just fifteen minutes walk to our school see, and we liked to eat well. We figured, we're just going to be sleeping in it. As rundown as the place was, it sat right between a huge supermarket and one of the best and most expensive Japanese restaurants in Beijing. Ok, on with the story: One night, there I was at home with one of my roommates. I was on the phone with someone else when our other roommate called my other roommate on her cell phone asking her to come down and get her. Now, this roommate that was outside, she was the type who starts screaming watching opening credits for horror movies, and she warned us that sometimes she might call one of us to come down and walk home with her, because it was just too dark and scary. So far she never did this, and I thought she was used to it by then, so to have her call up suddenly that night was quite peculiar.

On my other roommate's way out the door to get her, I stopped her and asked what was going on. She said (something like this), “She said there's a lady following her.” Ooh… Like a dialogue from a horror flick. So I continued chatting on the phone while she went down to get our other friend. When I finally heard them come in, I heard someone else (that was unfamiliar) trying to hold on to the door and get in. But since I was stuck on the phone, I couldn't get a good view of who it was. I was like a narrator, telling my friend on the phone what was happening when I myself wasn't sure what was going on. I just heard my roommate say, “We don't know you.” Somebody else laughing,“I know you!” My roommate replying,“ Then who am I? What's my name?" My other roommate saying,“What are you doing?! Just close the door!" Then door slamming.

I got the whole story later on, but first I must explain how the lights in the hallway work. They’re always off, and they’re not noise sensitive, instead you have to touch them to get some light. So my roommate was on her way up, we lived on the 5th floor if I remember correctly, she got to the second floor and turned on the lights and who should be standing right there in front of her but this 40 year old lady. “You scared me! What are you doing standing here in the dark.” In Chinese it was actually said a lot faster. So she continued to climb the stairs, and noticed that the woman has also began climbing the stairs with her.

My roommate felt it was strange, strange enough that she turned around mid 3rd or 4th floor, to face the woman and asks her (something like this) “Where are you going?” Now assuming that the lady lived in the same building, this question would be rude, but who knows why my roommate thought to asks anyway. The lady says she was going to our house (making it sound like she was a visitor). My roommate wouldn’t hear anymore, and started back down the stairs, passing the lady. She finds a public phone and phones us.

That night after closing the door, we looked out the peephole to see if she was still there, but the lights were already turned off, we couldn’t see anything. It crossed my mind to open the door to find out but of course only people in movies do that. The next day, on our way to school, we told the old man who guards the big front gate about last night, and he says, “yeah, there was a lady seen coming out this morning from your building, she’s suppose to be a bit Looney.” Thank goodness we weren’t tempted enough to open the door last night!!!
It was pretty scary for awhile, coming home every night alone and in the dark, you couldn’t help but wonder if she decided to come back. Can you imagine?!