In August of 1984 on the island of Hainan in southern China, a fortune teller predicted “1985 would be a bad year and that all of the people would suffer from many disasters,” according to a report later published by the Guangzhou Brain Hospital, which I found while researching my book,
The Geography of Madness: Penis Thieves, Voodoo Death, and the Search for the Meaning of the World's Strangest Syndromes (now in paperback).
Soon after that, rumors began circulating that a “fox ghost,” sometimes disguised as an old woman, was roaming the land, collecting penises in baskets she carried on her shoulder pole. Two young men approached her to see what was in her baskets. When then looked, they saw that they were filled with penises. They died instantly of fright, according to the story...