Fengdu, the “City of Ghosts, China

Fengdu, the “City of Ghosts, China

 

Fengdu, the “City of Ghosts,” is situated about 110 mile (170 kilometers) downstream from Chongqing Municipality on the north bank of the Yangtze River. It attracts tourists from all over China to know about Chinese ghost culture and the afterlife. Visitors are constantly reminded in that place that good is rewarded with good, and evil is rewarded with torturous, and also to see what the Chinese would call a “model of hell.” Fengdu became known as Ghost City in the Tang Dynasty (618-907) when two Imperial court officials married and settled on Ming Mountain to practice Taoist teachings. The couples’ surnames combined Yin and Wang “King of Hell” in Chinese. They supposedly became immortals. Thus was born Fengdu City of Ghosts –

There are many statues of ghosts and of devils in the temples which describe the after-life where people who disobey ancient Chinese morals are punished in every horrifying ways. We can see for example Big Demon Ghost – Fengdu – is one of the Big Ghosts guarding the steps leading up to the Pass to Hell

 In the Chinese faith of the afterlife, the person who died must undergo three important tests to enter the netherworld. These tests are taken at three different places – 

Nothing-To-Be-Done-Bridge (the 'Bridge of Helplessness')

Ghost Torturing Pass 

the Tianzi (son of heaven) Palace.

These three locations are among many attractions in this scenic area.

 Nothing-To-Be-Done-Bridge (the 'Bridge of Helplessness')

This stone bridge was built during the Ming Dynasty and is a test for Good and Evil. It has three arches and only the middle one is used for testing people. There are different protocols for crossing the bridge depending on sex, age, marital status. At the bridge demons allow or forbid passage. The good are allowed to pass while the evil will be pushed to the water below. This is now done as a tourist attraction and performers characterized as demons momentarily stop tourists on the bridge but finally allow them across.

Ghost Torturing Pass  

In that place they present themselves for judgment before Yama, King of Hell. In this area there are large sculptures of demons.

The Tianzi (son of heaven) Palace. 

That test is done at the entrance to Tianzi Palace where the dead must stand on a certain stone on one foot for three minutes. According to legend a virtuous person will be able to do it while an evil person will fail and be condemned to hell. Tianzi Palace is the largest and oldest building and it is three hundred years old.

 A more recent addition is the Last Glance to Home Tower (also called Home Viewing Pavilion) which was built in 1985 and is placed where according to legend the dead could have one last look towards their home and families.

 Catacombs of Paris, France

Beneath Paris' City Streets, There's an Empire of Death Waiting for Tourists.

Let’s start from the beginning,

Between the 17th and 18th centuries cemeteries of Paris were getting so full that residue from decaying organic material was getting into the water supply and creating very unhealthy conditions., the number of dead bodies buried in Paris’s cemeteries and beneath its churches were so great that they began breaking through the walls of people's cellars and causing serious health concerns.

Louis XV (15) issued an edict banning all burials from occurring inside the capital, but because of Church pushback, which didn't want cemeteries disturbed or moved, nothing else was done. Louis XVI(16) , Louis XV's successor, continued the crusade, also proclaiming that all cemeteries should be moved outside of Paris. It wasn't until 1780, however, that anything was done. That year, a prolonged period of spring rain caused a wall around Les Innocents to collapse, spilling rotting corpses into a neighboring property. The city needed a better place to put its dead.

So it went to the tunnels, moving bones from the cemeteries five stories underground into Paris' former quarries. Cemeteries began to be emptied in 1786, beginning with Les Innocents. It took the city 12 years to move all the bones—from bodies numbering between 6 and 7 million -—into the catacombs. Some of the oldest date back as far as the Merovingian era, more than 1,200 years ago.

The Paris catacombs, then, are a 200-mile network of old caves, tunnels and quarries - and much of it is filled with the skulls and bones of the dead.

Despite the vast length of the tunneled, underground world, only a small section of it is open to the public. This tiny portion, known as Denfert-Rochereau Ossuary, or more popularly, "The Catacombs," has become one of the top tourist attractions in Paris.

Street names are etched into the walls to help explorers navigate their way around the underground version of the city and some groups have even been known to throw parties in the tunnels or drink wine. Visitors can also purchase audio guides, for 3 euros (about $4). The tunnels extend many more miles under the city, but it's illegal to visit most areas.

The tunnels are open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, and cost around $11 for adults. Be sure to bring a jacket—the tunnels are chilly, with a constant temperature of 57° F.

There are, hence, more than 6million people underground. It is the reason there are few tall buildings in Paris; large foundations cannot be built because the catacombs are directly under the city's streets.

 Candido Godoi, Brazil

 

Cândido Godói, a small town in Southern Brazil, nicknamed as ‘Twin Land’. As the name suggests, a phenomenal number of twins are born in the remote town each year –'Twin Land' The place where more than one in 10 pregnancies is a multiple birth. it’s twin birth rate is 18 times higher than the world average and it  has some 700 twins in population of 6,600 - 1,000% higher than global average twin rate Why?

Well according to its local, it was after Nazi physician Mengele, who fled to the village after ending of World War II, that the births started happening. Oddly enough Mengele was known to have a strange fascination with twins.

Mengele disguised himself as a roaming physician and veterinarian and gave pregnant women in Cândido Godói an ahead-of-its-time, twin-inducing mix of drugs or hormones, the historian suggests.

Mengele, who died in Brazil in 1979, was notorious for his often-deadly experiments on twins at Auschwitz, ostensibly in an effort to produce a master Aryan race for Hitler.

Modern scientists, however, propose  that it is most likely due to toxic waste or inbreeding.

In 2009, a series of DNA tests were conducted on about 30 families by Brazilian geneticist Ursula Matte and her team of 20 researchers. Through the tests, it was discovered that a specific gene occurs more frequently in the village in the mothers of twins, than in mothers without twins. And given the high level of inbreeding in the small town largely populated by German-speaking immigrants, the phenomenon is bound to have compounded.

Dr Matte found that from 1990 to 1994, 10 percent of the births in São Pedro were twins, compared with less than 1 percent for Brazil as a whole.

 ‘We analyzed six genes and found one gene that confirms, in this population, a predisposition to the birth of twins,’ Dr Matte told the New York Times.

The scientists believe that a small number of immigrant families living in São Pedro may have brought the variant gene to the region. “This does not mean that it is a universal gene,” Dr. Matte said. “If I take twins from New Zealand and test them, it will probably generate a different result.”