Country file · Asia & the Middle East
Haunted places in Vietnam
What are the most haunted places in Vietnam? The best-known is Hui Bon Hoa Mansion (Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts).
In Vietnam the dead remain part of the family. Ancestral altars stand in most homes, the dead are honoured at Tết and on death anniversaries, and the seventh lunar month brings offerings for wandering souls (cô hồn) who have no one to remember them. The country’s long wars left many dead far from home, and stories of their spirits are told with sympathy as much as fear.
- 1 haunting
- 5 recorded sightings
Haunted places in Vietnam
The ghost lore of Vietnam
Urban legends cluster in the old colonial cities. In Ho Chi Minh City, the mansion built for the wealthy Hui Bon Hoa family – now the city’s Museum of Fine Arts – has been rumoured since before 1975 to be haunted by a hidden daughter, a tale that inspired a popular film but does not fit the family’s history. Hanoi has its own abandoned-building legends.
Many places associated with the war dead are memorials and cemeteries where Vietnamese people come to pay respects. Visitors interested in the country’s ghost stories should approach them in the same spirit.
Ghost-hunting hotspots
- District 1, Ho Chi Minh City
Home to the Hui Bon Hoa mansion and to the abandoned building at 727 Trần Hưng Đạo, both subjects of Saigon urban legends.
- Kim Mã, Hanoi
The unfinished building at 300 Kim Mã, once planned as an embassy, is the capital’s most famous “haunted house.”
- Côn Đảo
The former prison island, where pilgrims visit the graves of political prisoners in Hàng Dương cemetery at night to pay their respects.
Timeline
- 1901The death of Chú Hỏa Hui Bon Hoa Mansion (Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts)
Hui Bon Hoa dies suddenly while visiting China with his wife and is buried there. His sons continue the family property company in Saigon.
- 1929–1934The mansion is built Hui Bon Hoa Mansion (Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts)
Architect Rivera’s design for the family’s mansion is completed on the block now bounded by Phó Đức Chính, Lê Thị Hồng Gấm, Calmette and Nguyễn Thái Bình streets.
- September 1987A museum of fine arts Hui Bon Hoa Mansion (Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts)
The building becomes the Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts, which opens fully to the public in the early 1990s.
- 14 May 2007“Legends of Chú Hỏa’s house” Hui Bon Hoa Mansion (Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts)
Sài Gòn Giải Phóng publishes a feature on the house’s legends, noting that ghost rumours predate 1975 and inspired a popular film.
- 8 May 2014Saigon Urban Legends Hui Bon Hoa Mansion (Ho Chi Minh City Museum of Fine Arts)
Saigoneer retells the story of the hidden daughter for an English-language audience, spreading the legend to foreign visitors.
From other news sites
Latest from Vietnam
No recent paranormal headlines from Vietnam. See all the latest paranormal news.