Nam Koo Terrace — The Wan Chai Haunted House

Inside of the once stately building, horrible crimes were committed against women. The Nam Koo Terrace, otherwise known as The Wan Chai Haunted House in Hong Kong gives a testament to the ghosts of the past.

There is an old red brick historic building in Hong Kong that the plan is to make into a fabulous wedding venue. The Nam Koo Terrace is also one of the city’s most well known haunted houses and also goes by the name, Wan Chai Haunted House.

The Nam Koo Terrace (南固臺) is a two storied building on No. 55 Ship Street that is now mostly covered in moss. The historical building in the Colonial Eclectic style was built in 1915 and used to belong to the wealthy To family who were merchants from Shanghai.

It also used to belong to Chun-man who rented it from the To family, a silk salesman who was also a member of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce. This was until World War Two happened and he was forced to leave his home as the Japanese invaded.

The Deadly Military Brothel

Back in the day under the Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong the Japanese soldiers used this building as a military brothel as well as a place of torture during the Second World War.

Comfort women or comfort girls were women and girls forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in occupied countries and territories before and during World War II. Estimates vary as to how many women were involved, with most historians settling somewhere in the range of 50,000–200,000.

Several of the buildings in the city turned into these so-called Comfort Houses for the imperial army. Luke’s College and the Tung Chi College were also converted into this type of building. Brothel is too nice of a name for it though as many women were brutally raped and according to the legends, also murdered.

After the war, the house went back to the To family who continued to use the house until 1988 when it was sold off. Perhaps because of the gruesome haunted rumors surrounding it?

The Headless Ghost of the Prostitutes

It is said it is the ghosts of the women that had to stay in this place, so called Comfort Women haunt the building, roaming headless in the night. Some even go as far as claiming insanity after staying in the house and once, papers like the Oriental Daily covered one of these cases.

In 2003 on the 30th November, there was a paranormal investigation by a group of eight young middle schoolers that spent the night to test themselves and the haunted rumors. The night didn’t go as planned though and the group saw more ghosts than they bargained for.

After the night it was said that one of them claimed to have been possessed by one of the ghosts they had encountered. According to the police, three had to be put into psychiatric treatment from the trauma they experienced that night.

Perhaps in another world this would have been the thing that made people think twice about getting close to this cold spot of tragedy, but the opposite happened. Over the next few days people flocked to the place to get some of the same experience as the middle schoolers did and the house stayed in the headlines of the newspapers for a long time.