ABSTRACT
For a decade or so, an ever-growing number of villagers from Thanh Ha had travelled to the renowned psychic Mr Lien in Northern Vietnam’s Hai Duong province to seek his services. Mr Lien was known to be able to sense the presence of the dead and instruct his clients in searching for their graves and bones. While Mr Lien never left his village, some of his clients travelled to remote jungle terrain in Southern Vietnam several thousand kilometres away from home. In autumn 2006, Mr Lien warned several clients from Thanh Ha that the restless ghost of a Chinese soldier who had died in battle in feudal times was up to mischief in their commune. He instructed them to build a shrine. Only by making regular offerings at the shrine could the ghost be assuaged. The villagers drove hurriedly back to their commune and approached the deputy chairman for cultural affairs to obtain permission to build the shrine. The government official however emphatically refused to consent to their plan, not least because it was based on the statements of a psychic.
