My friends keep telling me that the Grand Hyatt is haunted. One of my friends who comes to Taipei frequently swears that he saw a ghost at the top floor, and refuses to ever stay there again. Can someone shed some light on this for me?
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Originally posted by Melissa Y.: [b]My friends keep telling me that the Grand Hyatt is haunted. One of my friends who comes to Taipei frequently swears that he saw a ghost at the top floor, and refuses to ever stay there again. Can someone shed some light on this for me?[/b]
Historically, the ground where the hotel is situated used to be a battlefield during the War. Needless to say, many soldiers were killed in action. Many guests have allegedly seen ghosts/spirits lingering around the hotel or in their rooms. As a proactive measure by the hotel management, feng shui experts and religious figures were consulted. Now, as you enter the hotel using the main entrance doors, the 2 middle columns are decorated with scrolls which are said to combat spirits/ghosts.
Not strictly true…
The ground that it was built on was actually a prison where people were executed. Many of the condemned were political prisoners who might have some axes to grind in re injustice et al.
I have to agree with May_Mienze. It used to be a political prison used by the KMT. My godfather was one of the the feng-shui experts who realigned the Chi in the Hyatt. When it opened, it was doing terribly - bad business and people who were seeing and hearing ghosts. I think that since the Hyatt did the various consultations, there have not been any new reports of hauntings.
FYI, the entire area around Taipei 101 used to be a secluded area to torture political prisoners (read Peng’s Taste of Freedom) covered with walls. Even during constructions of the skyscrapers in the area, a lot of things have gone wrong, such as cranes falling off, floor bases collapsing, etc.
A funny story about Hyatt, during Jackie Chen’s stay at Hyatt’s presidential suite, Jackie pretty much stormed out of the suite (chased and kicked out by the ghost) early in the morning like 3 am, I’m not quite sure if the paranormal activities and sightings have completely disappeared. He swore he’d not stay at Hyatt again.
So… you think this feng shui stuff and spells on scrolls actually deters ghosts??? it’s interesting.
Bah … what’s a hotel worth without it’s ghost?
A good hotel needs a ghost …
ghost sightings at Grand Hyatt has been around since it opened. I tend to think that they are not imagined, as too many people have seen them through the years.
Ghosts? Bring 'em on! I say it’s bunk. And they wasted money getting a Feng-Shui expert (I use the term expert loosely…) to make sure it was okay. Bwa ha ha ha ha!!
To me that makes it more likely they are imagined: people hear stories and go there expecting to see them. Then any unexplained sound or night-time hallucination, fueled by an overactive imagination, becomes another “ghost sighting”.
During WWII, the area now bounded by Keelung, Xinyi, Zhongxiao and Songren Roads was a Japanese military storage depot. Here’s a map from 1944:
Yes. that would be hearsay. So we don’t know what those many people may or may not have seen, imagined, or thought they heard.
Yikes, watch out for ghosts at Hyatt.
One popular story has Jackie Chan storming out of the hotel at 3am and swearing never to return as a result of his ghostly experiences.
http://strangespookyweird.com/2015/10/the-dark-past-of-taiwans-most-haunted-hotel/