茶 FIRST IMPRESSIONS
茶 REVIEW OF BOOKS & FILMS

[FIRST IMPRESSIONS] “Ancient Fears, Modern Horrors: Sinophagia: A Celebration of Chinese Horror“ by Jennifer Eagleton

Xueting Christine Ni (translator and editor), Sinophagia: A Celebration of Chinese Horror, Solaris, 2024. 496 pgs.

This collection of 14 stories is an excellent primer on recent Chinese horror and a fascinating way to understand 21st-century Chinese society from a fictional perspective.

The collection opens with a general introduction by Xueting Christine Ni, the translator and editor of the volume, and establishes the background and origins of the stories that follow, while each story is accompanied by a reflection that places it within a wider context. The stories explore urban legends, traditional culture, regional mythology, and real-life aspects of modern Chinese society, all given surreal and horrific twists. The selection below comprises my favourites.

Travelling at night and through remote mountains is clearly a hazardous business in Chinese horror. Set in a remote, mountainous Chinese village, She Cong Ge’s “Those Who Walked at Night with Ghosts” tells the story of a young doctor who insists on setting out at night to transport a sick old man to hospital, despite the fearful warnings of local villagers. The tale brings modern medicine into contact with ancient folk superstitions, showing how historical trauma and local legends remain potent forces in the dark. Chi Hui’s “Night Climb” is the shortest piece, really more of a vignette, but, to me, one of the spookiest. A lone hiker undertakes a strenuous night-time climb along a mountain trail, hoping to reach the peak by dawn. Along the dark path, he encounters a strange group of walkers whose disturbing behaviour alarms the safety personnel. He then meets a girl who appears normal, but by the end is very clearly not. The sting is in the tail.

Ghosts, of course, have a major role to play in Chinese horror. Zhou Dedong’s “Have You Heard of Ancient Glory?” reflects urban anxieties and the lack of space for the remains of dead relatives. A young couple find an affordable apartment in a pristine, quiet residential complex on the outskirts of the city named “Ancient Glory”. Few people seem to live there. During the Qingming Festival, however, crowds arrive, revealing that the apartments are intended not for the living, but for those who have passed on. Vimei Tangguo’s “The Ghost Wedding” brings to mind the practice of minghun 冥婚, the traditional Chinese “ghost marriage”, in which the dead are provided with a spouse so that they are not alone in the afterlife. This story focuses on marginalised, often poor women who become such brides of the dead. In “The Yin Yang Pot” by Chuan Ge, a chilling tale of betrayal and reckoning, a man encounters a former girlfriend on a dark street in her hometown, and they go together to a hotpot restaurant. Sharing a yuanyang (split-side) hotpot, with its contrasting red chilli and white broths, the man is warned not to dip the morsels into the red side. He does so anyway and falls into a supernatural trap that culminates in an accidental ghost marriage.

Zhou Haohui’s “Forbidden Rooms” is more psychological drama than horror because its premise could easily happen, and indeed has happened, in real life. A woman is abducted and finds herself trapped in a confined space alongside a man she does not know. The narrative unfolds as a tense survival game, and it gradually becomes apparent that the woman is being forced to confront her deeply buried guilt over a tragic death. It serves as a dark commentary on the coldness of modern society. “The Death of Nala” by Gu Shi is another psychological piece in which reality itself becomes the horror. A mother experiences continual nightmares and fears about her young son, whom she believes has suffocated a small kitten with a plastic bag because it annoyed him. She seeks help for her child. It transpires that she has repressed memories of the death of her son’s baby sister, Cindy, nicknamed “Nala”. Her son had murdered his baby sister, and her mind had replaced this memory with the false memory of a dead kitten because of the horrific nature of his act.

Fan Zhou’s “The Waking Dream” depicts a world in which technology allows people to participate in a virtual workplace while their bodies sleep. However, workers are stalked by grotesque, spawn-like monsters with multiple eyes that symbolise their hidden, deep-seated fears and anxieties. The story can be linked to themes of modern workplace alienation and burnout. In many ways, it reminds me of the stresses of virtual working during the recent pandemic.

These short stories and novellas were written from the 2000s onwards and first appeared in online magazines and forums. Although somewhat mixed in quality, they provide a compelling entry point for exploring the problems and fears of modern society, as well as the ways in which these contemporary anxieties remain tightly bound to traditional myths and ancient fears, which can themselves be reshaped to accommodate the modern world.

^{How to cite, Eagleton, Jennifer. “Ancient Fears, Modern Horrors: Sinophagia: A Celebration of Chinese Horror.” Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 14 Aug. 2026. chajournal.com/2026/08/14/sinophagia.}

Jennifer Eagleton, a Hong Kong resident since October 1997, is a close observer of Hong Kong society and politics. Jennifer has written for Hong Kong Free Press, Mekong Review, and Education about Asia. She has published two books on Hong Kong political discourse: Discursive Change in Hong Kong(Rowman & Littlefield, 2022) and Hong Kong’s Second Return to China, A Critical Discourse Study of the National Security Law and its Aftermath(Palgrave Macmillan, 2025). Her poetry has appeared in Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine, People, Pandemic & ####### (Verve Poetry Press, 2020), and Making Space: A Collection of Writing and Art (Cart Noodles Press, 2023). [All contributions by Jennifer Eagleton.]