One of the interesting and challenging aspects of cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary study is to try to find appropriate terms to express some fundamental conceptions or phenomena to be compared. In the study of death, netherworld, and concepts related to the idea of an afterlife, the term ghost is probably the most important key to all discussions. But what is a ghost, and whether every cultural or religious system would have the same concept, is a complicated question that defies a simple answer. This talk tries to analyze the records about ghosts in early China and discuss how people perceived the presence of ghosts, whether real or imagined, and why.