Japan: Land of the Rising Spirits
When I was an English teacher in Osaka, Japan, Halloween was approaching and, just
for fun, I asked my students to tell stories of local superstitions, myths, and
legends. I got a lot of good anecdotes concerning individual scary stories.
A junior high school boy, told me the legend of Hanako, which is comparable to
Bloody Mary. Hanako was a young elementary schoolgirl who went to the bathroom and
entered the third stall and never came back. She is said to haunt the bathrooms of
elementary schools all over Japan. When you enter the third stall in the
girls’ bathroom, a male ghost asks you if you prefer blue or red toilet
paper. If you answer red, the ghost kills you by repeatedly slashing your back and
neck. For blue you are killed by hanging. There is an alternate version with a
female ghost who asks you where her legs are. Depending on how you answer determines
if you live. I decided to ask my other elementary and junior high students and
everyone had a Hanako story to tell. Several students avoid the third stall at all
costs in both boys and girls bathrooms. There have been a couple of movies about
Hanako.
Also in the elementary schools, children have been known to see dead Japanese
soldiers walking the halls in World War II uniforms.
Another urban legend has to do with Mount Fuji, a world famous tourist attraction,
and the forest of Aokigahara. Near Mount Fuji is Aokigahara, a forest infamous for
suicides. I was told by a student to be careful entering the forest by tying a rope
around my waist and the other end around a tree. Over 78 bodies of suicides have
been discovered inside. The Japanese are scared of areas where a suicide or a murder
has occurred. You can rent a apartment or buy a house cheap if a recent death
happened because the locals don’t want anything to do with the place. That is
how a lot of Americans get cheaper accommodations living in Japan.
The Yurei, Japanese ghost, are said to haunt the area. Forest workers are known to
take precautious entering Aokigahara for regular maintenance.
If you travel to Shikoku take care because it’s called the Land of the Dead.
The Chinese character used to write Shi is the same character that means dead. Koku
uses the character for land. Shikoku has 88 temples and many Japanese take a special
vacation just to see each one. According to legend, and also based on the movie
Shikoku, if you see the temples in the reverse order the dead are suppose to appear
and take over the whole area.
Finally, another student told me of Fushimi Inari-taisha, a shrine in Kyoto. The
shrine has many fox statues because the spirit of the fox is believed to watch over
it. The student told me to be careful and that if I saw the fox spirit, I would
probably die.
A funny thing happened. After hearing that story, around Bon Season (when the dead
are believed to return back to earth), I took a friend with me to see Fushimi
Inari-taisha.
My friend and I arrived around midnight and it was quiet and eerie. The fox statues
seemed to watch you like eyes in an old painting. We walked under several bright red
Torii, the archway with two poles on either side and a support beam across the top.
Walking along, the ground rises because the shrine is built on a mountain. My friend
noticed something strange. He walked over to a water bucket and a lizard was trapped
inside drowning. My friend took the lizard out and released him in the woods to the
side.
I was looking forward to seeing the top. Just before getting to the top, my friend
freaked out on me. He took off running. I had no choice but to follow him.
I caught up with him and asked him what was wrong.
He took me that “something evil is here and we shouldn’t be here this
late at night. We have to hurry and exit the shrine.”
He continued telling me about something bad being around and that he could sense
that whatever it was didn’t want us on this mountain. So we both ran down the
mountain and my heart was racing and all I wanted to do was clear the red torii
overhead.
We managed to exit the shrine area without seeing any fox spirits. I felt relief
after walking away from the shrine. I can’t really describe it but
it’s a feeling in your stomach and throughout your whole body that some
presence doesn’t want you around. A little like when you pass a stray dog
that snarls and bites. However, whatever that was, it was invisible and that made it
a lot worse.
I asked my friend about how he picked up on it and he told me that he has psychic
abilities. He had a strong urge to get out of the area because a voice inside his
head told him not to stay here any longer. I always wondered what would happen if I
ignored my friend, and walked to the top myself? I didn’t believe my friend
at first, then I felt strange after he said something. Maybe the spirit wanted me to
disbelieve.
The next day during my English class I told my student about it and he told me that
I was lucky not to see the fox. I would be dead if I had.
If you ever consider going to Japan, be sure to check out some of the supernatural
areas.
"The Asian Aperture" is ©2009 by Jason Fetters. Webpage design and all graphics herein (except where otherwise noted) are creations of Nolan B. Canova. All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2009 by Nolan B. Canova.
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