The Qiu Mansion in Shanghai is said to be one of the city’s most haunted places. It was owned by the Qiu brothers who mysteriously disappeared and left a haunted house and an unsolved mystery.
The Qiu Brothers Mansion, also called the Cha House or Cha Gong Guan is an old mansion now restored as a historic building combining both western and chinese style in Shanghai in China. It is in the high end district of Jing’an and was built in a time where Shanghai was a place for people all over the country and world to make money.
Shanghai is known for its diverse cultural elements with a French or British flare to the architecture as well as traditional Chinese. In the early 1900s, it was known as the Athens of China by the Europeans and many tried to make the city their own as they saw the financial importance it played by the coast.
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By the early 1900s there were a lot of from rags to riches stories, and plenty of people came to the Bund and to Shanghai to try to make a fortune. Some did make good money, although most just kept working away. Even fewer ended up keeping their riches forever.
The Qui Brothers
The Qiu brothers, Qiu Xinshan and Qiu Weiqing began their story as migrant workers in Shanghai that started from nothing and worked their way up. They came from a fishing family on Weishang Lake in Shandong Province, and had to go east in search of a better future.
The pair made their fortunes selling paint in the early 1900s when the First World War broke out and the Germans couldn’t trade with China anymore, so the Qiu brothers took over the work from a German merchant selling paint and soon started to see their fortune grow.
With the money from the paint selling business, the two brothers took it and built two identical mansions next to one another in the heart of the city in 1913, or even later in the 1920s.
The brothers became incredibly rich and lived a lavish lifestyle and their ornate Qiu Mansion grounds became home to the brother’s collection of exotic pets that included Burmese tigers, peacocks, and even crocodiles roamed the gardens.
The Missing Mystery
At the height of their fame and notoriety, the Qiu brothers mysteriously disappeared as their paint industry started to decline in the wake of the wars raging. The Qiu Mansions started to decay and their once great gardens withered. The animals disappeared one by one, many just straight up killed to get rid off or eaten.
What really happened could be something quite different though, as it is also said they moved to a smaller apartment, and they rented out the mansion to be used as a school. What happened to them in the end though, seems to be shrouded in shadows though.
Haunted Rumors of the Qiu Mansion
Rumors emerged of strange occurrences such as objects moving by themselves or shadows appearing in the abandoned mansion and eerie noises could be heard in the night. Yet, no one has been able to prove the legends.
During World War II the mansions were used as a middle school until 2002 and one of the buildings of the Qiu Mansion was demolished in the 1950s. In 2010 they moved the remaining house almost 60 meters down the road and reopened in 2019 as a historic building.
Just across the street there is a Four Seasons Hotel facing the former Qiu Mansion. From there, many visitors as well as staff have reported hearing and seeing strange animals roaming around the abandoned site.
Perhaps the weirdest thing happening to the place is the rumors from the workers working all around the hotel. Construction workers from the restoration have sometimes sought hospital treatment for strange bites they believe come from animals, even though no one knows where and how they got injured.
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References:
In Cold Blood: The Qiu Mansion Haunting | Paranormal World Wiki
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