The Cat-Faced Old Lady of Harbin, 1995: Red Strings on Every Child's Wrist

In the mid-1990s in Harbin, there was a story that spread like wildfire: the Cat-Faced Old Lady.

The most common version goes like this. An old woman in the suburbs quarreled with her daughter-in-law, despaired, and hanged herself. Her body was laid out in the mourning hall when a calico cat jumped over the corpse. Suddenly, the old woman sat up—half human face, half cat face. She bolted out of the house, and from then on, she snatched children at night.

The tellers added more and more detail. Some said that for a year or two, children who went out to play at night vanished; some said the village's chickens and ducks dwindled; some claimed they saw her crawling on rooftops, long nails on her fingers. Several primary schools in Harbin held meetings over it, telling students to walk home in groups, and some schools required every child to tie a red string around their wrist, said to ward off evil. Later, some people recalled red cloth strips hanging at their front doors; once night fell, there were hardly any children on the streets.

After that, the story grew ever more muddled. Some said the old woman was eventually caught and shot dead by the army with machine guns; some said it never happened, that it was a rumor invented by someone selling walnut combs to drum up business; others claimed organ traffickers were using the name to commit crimes, warning adults to keep a tight watch on their children.

The only thing I can confirm is one thing: back then in Harbin, many people do remember walking home from school in groups, remember the red strings on their wrists. As for that Cat-Faced Old Lady, from start to finish, not a single person has produced even one photograph of her, nor any report or record saying she ever snatched a child.

Those who grew up later, looking back, remember most vividly not the old lady's face, but those few weeks, and the stern-faced adults at home saying one thing: Don't play outside alone.

#Paranormal #网络转载 #东北