Urban Legends: Gai-Jan (Chicken Man)

Gai-Jen (Traditional Chinese: 雞人) translated to "Chicken man". It is an urban legend from Hong Kong. Although purported to have predated the Second World War, recent research suggests a more recent origin. Specifically, it was written by the Hong Kong writer Zita Law 羅穎思 for the now defunct Yes! magazine in 1991. Because it was written so convincingly, many netizens confused it as being true and spread it across the internet as a true historical event. In fact, it is commonly attributed as being the top 10 most famoous urban legend of Hong Kong. Below is my translated version of the story. 


During the 1930s, the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) was in full swing. Hong Kong, then still a British Colony at the time, was still at peace but was flooded with refugees from the mainland, fleeing the war.  Among them are many children. For many obvious reasons, they are easy pickings for human traffickers, who kidnapped young children to work for them as slave labourers. 

On 117 Queen's Road West, there was the famous Gou Sing Theatre on 117 Queen's Road West. It was one of Hong Kong's biggest movie theatre at the time. Every night, citizens crowded toward it for late night entertainment. Unbeknownst to most, in the small dark alleyway behind the theatre, there is a small tent, which has lines as busy as the theatre. Inside the canopy, a dim light shined toward a pitiful small character, who looks like a hybrid of a chicken and a man. It has a curved back, and although it had feathers around his body, it has no wings, just two small malnourished legs that keep himself supported. They could not speak and could squeak much like a chicken. Each night, visitors to the tent take pleasure in marvelling at the Chicken Man. 

Unfortunately, they are wrong. The people running the shows in the tents each night are human traffickers and the chicken men are the children they kidnapped. The kidnappers figured forcing the children to beg for money may get themselves in trouble from the government, and citizens were bored of just seeing the children dance and sing. Hence, they thought of a sinister idea. Why not they run a freak show? They could beat the children into a pulp, and before their wounds could completely heal, they could stick feathers into them, so once they are healed, the feathers would be stuck into them. To make the children more chicken-like, they deformed their face and even chopped off their arms. Finally, they cut off their tongues so they could not speak and cried for help. Many children died in the process, but enough survived to help run the show. 

At first, no one noticed. After all, there are so many children missing every day that no one could keep count. However, one of the children the traffickers kidnapped fled and managed to catch the police and expose their malicious deed. The police were able to dismantle their operations, but by that time, many children had already died. Not long after, the Japanese invaded Hong Kong. Hence, this horrendous story became forgotten as people become occupied with the sinister crimes committed by the invaders and the collaborators. Today, the theatre is no longer standing, however, it was said when you visited the site when it once was in a dark and silent, you could still hear the screams of the children from a distance.