Travel Journalist Ghost Story 5 / Old Rural Japanese House – Who Keeps Scratching the Cabinet?

The job of a “travel journalist” is rich and diverse, often involving travel around the world and full of various challenges. However, this seemingly fun job not only requires independence and a willingness to try new things, but also frequently involves staying alone in various hotels and visiting peculiar locations—naturally leading to many strange encounters. For this “Ghost Month when the Gates of Hell Open,” ETtoday ETToday Travel Cloud specially collected experiences from multiple travel journalists, revealing the ghostly encounters that readers never see before and after the reports—these are the ghost stories from the lives of travel journalists themselves.

Spoken by / Miss Li

It was an old house in a rural part of Japan, over 90 years old. Rural old houses can actually be quite beautiful, but somehow they give off a faint sense of desolation. That time, I was there for a magazine photo shoot. After being out all day, we arrived very late. Due to room arrangements, although we usually have single rooms for one person each, I ended up sharing a room with a female photographer who was also on the trip.


▲ Illustration of a Japanese-style room, not related to this article. (Photo / File photo)

That night was really strange. I remember when I was trying to sleep, there was a continuous sound of something being dragged coming from the upper right above my head in the room. What was being dragged? It sounded a bit like a cabinet, or maybe someone scratching something—it was just very strange. The sound would come every so often, and throughout the night, even while I was mostly asleep, I could vaguely hear the sound of things being dragged back and forth. I kept thinking to myself, who on earth is staying up all night and not sleeping?

The next morning when I got up, I couldn’t help but mention the strange sounds from the night before to the photographer sharing the room with me. She said she had heard them too, but didn’t say much. I remember she’s somewhat sensitive to supernatural things, and since she didn’t elaborate, I didn’t feel comfortable asking further. It wasn’t until after we checked out that I mentioned to others how, in the room where I stayed, there were sounds of something being dragged and scratched all night long...

“But there’s no one living in that direction, and no way anyone could have gone over there, because there’s a window outside!” was the reply I got.