Hello!

Hello! Thanks for finding my blog!

My name is Renee Lee and I am the author of Strange Tales: A New York Ghost Story. It's inspired by all the Chinese folk tales I read as a kid, specifically the ones in Strange Tales of Liao Zhai. It's a Chinese classic and contains a few hundred folk tales that deal with everything from ghosts and demons to fox spirits.

People may recognize a lot of the themes and treatment of ghosts and shape shifting animal spirits from Japanese anime and manga. This is because there are a lot of parallels between the two folk cultures.

But what makes Chinese folklore unique is how it weaves in Taoist and Buddhist themes, emphasizing morality, karma and reincarnation. They also don't have 'good' and 'evil' or happy endings. Rather they reflect every day life, hidden under the curtain of a supernatural story.

Thanks again for reading! If you have any questions, have feedback or anything else, please contact me!

-R